The Catalyst of War
by TayteFFN
Summary: 5: Fragile. "The reality is, Lyn, that any evidence you have to prove yourself heir to Caelin's throne is very. Very. Fragile. ...I'll be frank . 'Lyndis' Legions' might well be the most abysmal group I'll ever lead." Snake "The draught you made me feed Peri! What was it!" Wil
1. The First Meeting

_**If any of you remember "Snake Fang" or "Lifeblood" or whatever the heck I called it... I looked back at it and remembered how much I enjoyed writing this. By the way, yes, I have tired of my eight-year obsession of the tactician's perspective of FE7 too, and I'm sorry if you are too. But if you want it anyway... XD**_

* * *

_**Chapter 1.**_

_**Lyn…if you die, who will notice?**_

She stood facing the wind, ignoring the rain pelting at her face, and inhaled the frigid air, a sharp stinging in her nose throbbing along with her temples.

_No humans…_

_Damn. _Six days since last she fed. Properly fed, that is.

The night sky was congested with thunderclouds. It had been raining for an hour already—or so she thought; she actually had no idea how long she'd been wandering, staggering, through the plains without shelter from the rain. At the oncoming of a sneeze, she pressed down her nostrils with her pointer finger and thumb, ending the tingling sensation abruptly. She could theoretically last for little more than a week without the salty drink of blood, and animal blood was almost satisfactory compared to human blood, but to catch a cold in Sacae Plains was something else entirely.

She didn't put faith in fanatical nomads and their herbs. And besides…they would be willing to believe in her monstrosity without reason, unlike Bern's hesitant peasant folk who were so eager to burn witches but would laugh at the mention of a _bacchri_.

After all, _dragons didn't exist anymore_.

Although there was a constant ringing in her head, her temples sending steady pulses of pain, her walking was reeling and her breathing slightly ragged, a tip of her wide lips curled up at the irony of the world.

But it was gone before it could be considered an actual smile. Her objective of the day came back to her.

She was craving blood. She _needed _blood. She needed it _soon_, for she hadn't a clue how long she could last without losing her sanity or hunting in desperation on innocent human beings. The wind held no trace of human settlements, nor the bittersweet tang of…evil…that she followed to find her prey among the humans. The scent of animals was much fainter than the scent of human, and though it was another option, the rain muddled her sense of smell and the stench of mud was unbearable, especially in the rain. Her last resort was to continue westwards without food.

The thought of the Taliver Mountain brightened her bleak thoughts. Her prey would be of great abundance! She'd tried to do without in the company of the Black Fang, but only lasted three days before the craving took her and she'd done the worst.

She never had the need to hunt with the Black Fang thereafter.

And now she was _hunting_ again. Certainly not out of practice, but she'd not imagined there would be a life for her other than in the Black Fang, just as she'd imagined there truly was nothing beyond the sandstorms that surrounded Arcadia so long ago. The world beyond was just a fantasy, she believed.

And now she was back in that fantasy world, the rain pelting at her, drenching her and running her very blood cold.

She would bear the pain of her unique thirst. Right now she needed to get out of the rain.

* * *

The next day, her feet had become numb. She lost all feeling, literally. In fact, when she had attempted to stand, one foot slipped and she didn't realize it had until it sprained and yelped painfully out of its silence. When she put a hand to it, she couldn't tell if her foot was hot or cold—or her hands, for that matter.

It had to be cold, of course. Cold like death. She didn't know if her skin had always been this cold, or if it was the withdrawal symptoms affecting her memory. She just couldn't remember if her hands were always cold.

She'd popped the vein in the rabbit's neck and sucked at it, if only to fool her mind. She had blood. Animal blood, not quite as effective if at all, but she had blood. She was satisfied.

Holding back coughs, she focused her now glinting eyes westwards.

The smell of human blood had wafted to her nose. She turned on the rock on which she sat, peddling herself in a semicircle with her bum firmly on the rock. She ignored the itching of her skin in the sun—she could find no shade whatsoever—but she wasn't worried that her unnaturally pale skin would flake off yet. The clouds looked like they would be upon her in an hour. She could last that long.

Yes…human scent… scattered…and very few in number… She would bet no more than five. But as for the bittersweet tang of those she made prey of…

She would not believe there was none. Perhaps her nose was failing at the moment, but there _had_ to be…

She made her destination slightly northwest. Two days…

* * *

The rabbit blood was ineffective, just as she had secretly believed, though she did not actually think her suspicion. It was just a foreboding.

The rains had returned and she coughed violently now, naked under the branches of the biggest tree she had seen in Sacae so far, her clothes dripping from the arms of the tree. She thanked the tree for a safe haven for the moment, but there was still a walk of a day and a half until she could finally reach the humans.

And now two more scents of human had joined the previous bunch as well.

With a bittersweet tang.

If she hadn't been jittering and sneezing, arms wrapped around her skinny build and the thought that maybe she _was _cold-blooded, she would have been unable to stop herself from racing towards the humans now, through rain or snow or sun.

More to drain the newcomers' of their life than to save the settled humans from whatever harm the newcomers had planned, she had to admit.

But for now, she was scanning the gray clouds with eyes bright red—_like clean blood, _she'd think to herself—and once her clothes had dried in the sun several hours later, was heading for a meal that would be the beginning of a new life.

She was a hunter. She knew patience. The bittersweet tang of evil couldn't run away from her.

* * *

_Not far now,_ she thought to herself, tramping through the sloshing wet grasslands. _Not more than an hour now._

She goaded herself continually. But her goading was failing, and the meal of raw gazelle (since she couldn't start a fire with all the wood being so wet), had satisfied her human part of her body. She could survive. She _would_ survive.

But her legs were ready to buckle, her arms were drooping from her shoulders, the pack seemed to cut into her left shoulder on which the single strap meant to carry the pack with hung from, and there was a cluster of young trees to her left, not twenty steps away.

The grass looked warm, dry. It was beckoning her. A little rest was all she needed. She was amiably full excepting the unique thirst and a little rest would do her wonders. She nodded to herself, stumbled forward, exerted extra force into her legs for a seven-step sprint forward and pitched forward once again, falling to the foot of one of the trees. She laid on the dry grass, catching her breath, with no delusion that sleep would come to her.

She didn't sleep.

A mat of her chin-length, ebony hair covered her face once she rolled to her side. She couldn't lift a hand to brush it away. It blocked her view; it irritated her cheek as the strands brushed softly with the wind against it.

_No,_ she thought as realization struck home. _It is not that I am tired. I am at my limit. Whatever is left I have to crawl…if I can manage even that._

She continued that line of thought. Would it be better to rest? Would she regain energy, or would rest only increase her hunger and make things worse?

She drew in ragged gasps of breath. Her bacchri diet seemed to be the diet she lived on. Who was she kidding eating human food? It did nothing for her…save constipate her when she ate something that didn't mix well with fresh blood. That happened too often. It would be better not to eat human food at all.

_I'm too close to stop now,_ she thought. Her throat was parched. _But I'm not strong enough to overpower my prey. _

_If I am lucky…maybe…somehow…someone will bleed… accidentally…and my mad desperation will finally seize me and I will rage until I have satisfied myself…_

Yet she never believed in luck, perhaps all the better, for she did not move to her own accord for the whole night. Her body decidedly refused to respond to her, as it did very few times in her life. She was unconscious in body, but mentally fully aware of what happened around her. When the rains returned, she was shocked out of her reminiscence by the steady clapping, and for a fleeting moment was glad that she'd stationed herself underneath the trees again.

It was dawn, a bloody red dawn, her favorite kind of dawn. She watched it serenely, almost an entire world away, when sudden movement caught her eye.

Something must have happened to her nose, for she did not even realize the human wandering toward her until she noticed that flicker of movement. She remained on her side, a gothic statue awaiting discovery. Snake closed her eyes, feigning sleep. She did pretty well.

Another moment, and the tramping of boots through the grass came to her ears. There was a louder breathing from the human.

Keep… still…

"Miss?" came the voice of an unsure woman. There was a slap of knees falling to the grass. The human shook Snake's shoulder, unknowing what she had discovered, that she was putting herself at fatal risk merely touching the creature. "Miss, please, awaken! This is no place to sleep! It is dangerous!"

Still there was no reaction from the Snake, though inside the bacchri smirked.

_Oh yes indeed, young madam. A very dangerous place indeed… _

She was set to launch at the foolish human, ready to kill whatever, ready to sink her teeth in the flesh of the human, her mind set…but her body wouldn't move.

I'm unconscious… I can't open my eyes anymore…

"Miss? Miss?" A moment of hesitation, then a sigh of resignation. "She is unconscious… Well, I can't leave her here, can I? …I'll take her back with me."

The bacchri was rejoicing. Here was prey, taking her in with open arms, the fool!

The human slid her hands under the bacchri's stomach and knees, shifted, then swung the bacchri up, shifted again, then there was steady tramping.

_She doesn't falter under my weight…_ Snake noted disinterestedly, unattached to her body and unable to feel anything. She would gain her strength eventually. She was going to kill this woman.

* * *

A day had passed. The bacchri could only see a darkness behind her closed lids, one in which even she could not perceive objects like she could in the night. She heard the young woman's mutterings quite often. The woman seemed to have been talking to herself, speaking every thought aloud. Once she had pried Snake's lids open—the bacchri saw her, saw light for a moment—but the woman gasped and had released them, startled. Snake was lost in darkness with her thoughts alone again, angered that she could not move her body. Some time later, the woman had fed the bacchri some strange broth, spooning the food into the bacchri's mouth once she was able to sit the creature upright.

_I am unable to do anything myself…how long until the human realizes I need blood?_

_No, she won't even think to consider it._

Every breath was an agony, a torture. Her prey actually touched her, was feeding her—something vile, yes, feeding her something she disliked a good deal. Her prey was right in front of her. It infuriated Snake. For hours at a time, Snake would focus on moving some part of her, her eyes especially.

Something awoke her. The scent. The bittersweet tang…

Snake's heart beat faster; she could hear it beating, loudly, louder than anything. From the silence, she presumed the woman had either gone outside or was sleeping.

The bittersweet tang was so close… She had to…to get up and…

But her body would not respond save her frantically beating heart.

Time was dragging. As far as Snake knew, she could have been unconscious for months already.

"Father…" a whisper brushed past Snake's ear. "Mother… No… Father, no! NO!"

Irritated, Snake thought, _Oh Goddess, you long-dead priestess who everyone worships for some unknown reason, she's having a nightmare._

"Save… Save…the tribe… No…Father…"

Silence.

It wasn't soon enough when Snake heard the rousing noises of the woman. She listened to all the rustling of cloth… The human must have been curling back, trying to sleep… Now she was up, probably changing… Now there was the clatter of wood to wood, the sound of some liquid pouring… Sizzling… Snake could smell more of the broth… Now the human was eating…

"More salt…" A sigh. "When will this woman awaken? It's been two days already…" There was a touch to Snake's forehead. "Ah, the fever's gone down slightly. Hmm… Red eyes… Is that a sign of evil? …I wish she would awaken soon. How long will she sleep?" More sighing, more muttering.

_Tribal designs… _Snake recognized the designs on the hem of the woman's outfit, a foot below the bound emerald hair. The woman's back was turned to her. The hut was a cozy living for one person, even two, but it bore the minimal necessities of humans.

The woman turned around half-heartedly, then her eyes brightened—and faltered. "Y-You… You're awake!"

Snake blinked, then realized she had been glaring at the woman, fury writ on her face plainly. For a moment, her eyes shifted to her toes.

_**Move it.**_

Her toes twitched.

She was back. Unconsciously, Snake was smiling, eyes wide in anticipation. She looked back at the woman. Little did she know, to the woman, she looked like a crazy woman.

_She looks at me like I am food, _the human thought ironically.

The bacchri shakily clambered to her feet and stepped off of the mat that had served as a temporary bed for her, then inhaled.

_Oh, they're so close… Forget the girl, I want the pair who are up to no good! _Snake thought. _Besides, I seem to owe the girl with my life. Wasn't I a part of the Black Fang? Black Fang doesn't operate like this… Have I really stooped so low I would think of feeding on this innocent girl who found it in herself to extend a helping hand to a stranger? Haven't I trained myself against slaughtering innocents? After so many years…it falls away in desperation. …So…where __**are**__ those two? _She inhaled again, mouth watering. She could smell them now… The bittersweet tang was muddled in sweat and foreign blood. The foreign blood smelled like…

_Ah, my prey turns out to be spicy…Taliver… I'm going to like it. I know I will. And after the feast…well, I can just flee west. Forget the girl._

Then her blood-red eyes fell on the sword. _Ah, maybe things will not be so easy._

"Ah! You must be hungry!" the woman exclaimed, swiftly at her knees beside the cooking pot where water was boiling. "I have prepared broth. You've been sleeping for two days. I found you—"

"I know where you found me," Snake's smooth, low voice cut in.

"You… But you were unconscious!"

"…Technically." Snake stood up, with little difficulty now. She muttered, "Almost time!"

"What? Um…" The woman lowered her face to taste the broth, then said, "This is good." She hastily served the broth into two wooden bowls carved with figures of animals in them. "Do you remember your name?"

Snake paused. After a moment, she decided, "Viperidae," pronouncing it _Vee-pair-ee-dah-ee_. "Peri, for short."

"That is… It is a strange name, Vee-pair-ee-dah-ee…" the woman said, raising her head, slightly taken aback by the abrupt, commanding tone of the woman. Upon contact with the woman's eyes, her emerald ones fell away quickly. "B-But pay me no mind! It is a good name!" After a moment of hesitation, she said, "My name is Lyn, of the Lorca tribe."

"The deceased?" Snake cocked her head, puzzled.

"Ah…yes, I am one of the handful of survivors…"

Snake reached for the pine cloak folded neatly at the corner of the hut, slid the double-belt lined with daggers from the cubic chest with a mirror around her waist and buckled it before she let her eyes roam in search of her shoes.

"Wait! Where are you going!" Lyn cried out.

"Stay inside; don't look out the windows. Put those drapes down." _They are almost here._

"What? But why?"

Snake strode around Lyn and the pot, slid her feet into her boots, buckled them completely (4 buckles), picked up the beige gauntlets set beside them and pulled them on as she thought of a reply.

Looking for her pack, she said, "So your sanity does not go into tatters."

Lyn scrambled onto her feet and took a firm hold of her guest's arm. "You are not fit to travel yet! You can barely stand without trembling."

"And I am leaving to cure that malfunction. My pack, please."

"What? What do you mean cure it? What you need is rest and food—"

"I've had enough rest and… My pack, if you please."

"NO!"

Snake took a step back, surprised.

Lyn raged on. "You are _sickly_ pale—"

"I've always been—"

"And your very hands are shaking as you—"

"I'm going to fix that—"

"And you've just been through a terrible fever, shaking all night long—"

"I must thank you for caring for me, then—"

"And you are NOT going _a-ny-where_!"

Lyn breathed quite heavily, her shoulder rising and falling inches at a time, her emerald hair tangled from the way she had been furiously shaking her head. There was silence as the two women glared at each other. Lyn averted her eyes away, her face pale as she opened her mouth to speak.

The sounds of clashing swept the words away.

"I'm late!" Snake gasped, then grinned, the thought of her pack fleeting her mind. Before Lyn could do anything, Snake had turned away and burst out of the hut.

"What—Peri—" Lyn reached for Peri's vanished body, then let her hand drop to her side, stunned. "What was that noise…? …Bandits!" She grabbed her father's sword from the chest right beside the door (as precaution) and ran out with it, scanning for Peri. "_Where_ is she…"

Peri's cloak was strewn onto the grass beside the door, the clasp bent by the force the woman must have used to tear it off. Lyn scanned the area, spotted Peri with her backless green blouse and exceedingly short black pants and leggings that covered from mid-thigh to ankles hidden in boots. Peri was running straight at the bandits, not so far away.

_I can't get to her in time! _Lyn panicked as she too shot across the long grass field, barely noticing the way the grass swayed and tickled her legs, nor the whipping of her dress. All she saw was Peri and the two bandits around her. A flash of silver…

Lyn was unsheathing her sword; it groaned at first, then whistled out. Another blinding flash—_the sun reflecting from her daggers,_ Lyn realized—a spurt of red and—

Lyn's sword slid effortlessly through the back of one of the bandits. With a grunt, she pulled it back out. She was dancing, wiggling around the flying axes, mocking the bandits for a stretching moment. Then things were happening so fast, she no longer remembered to look at how Peri was faring, and next thing she knew had a blinding pain in her arm. White-lightning pain. It _burned_. She shrieked, ducked a blow to the head (she no longer knew who was attacking who) and danced backwards, keeping her eyes locked on the battle ensuing in front of her.

_Peri!_

Peri had stumbled now—her face held shock and she had already realized this might have been it—the second bandit's arm raised high, the axe glinting cruelly—

Lyn narrowed her eyes, switched her sword from her left to right hand, biting back her forgotten pain unconsciously as she stepped backwards and charged forwards and—

The world spun, the sky muddled with the grass, but only one thing was constantly in focus: the attacking bandit. She felt the contact of her sword and flesh, but she couldn't understand it, didn't even realize what she was doing until she found his blood had spurt into her mouth…

She gagged, turning away from the sight of the sword in the man's forehead, the blood gushing out madly. Falling to her knees, she retched on the grass seeping with blood.

"Lyn, get out of here…"

Lyn turned back to look at Peri, then gasped. Peri's eyes were wider than ever, maniacal, admiring…admiring the blood gushing out of the bandit's head.

There came a grunt from the first bandit, which turned into a wheezing, dying moan when Peri turned swiftly and struck a dagger into the bandit's heart, shattering bone on the way. Lyn flinched when she heard the sickening cracks.

"Lyn, get out of here…" Peri looked back at her.

Lyn forgot how to breathe. The look on Peri's face, craving, hungry…

"Go… Now…" Peri whispered, turning her attention to the bandit with the sword in his head. With one white hand she pulled out the blade—cutting more of the man's head apart, but Lyn had a feeling…a terrifying feeling that that was what Peri had meant to do. "And shut the door behind you, drape the windows, and don't look out."

Lyn took the sword she was handed and nodded unconsciously, stood up and turned around, heading to her hut, not once looking back.

There was a slurping sound behind her that froze her for a second. Tears had flooded out of her eyes. Then terror overcame her and Lyn ran across the rest of the field to her hut, a scream locked in her throat.

Peri was _eating_ that bandit!

The hut wasn't getting any closer to Lyn, it seemed to her. She was running, but not running fast enough. Peri was going to turn around and catch her too; Peri was going to _eat_ _her_ _alive_!

Lyn sobbed as a thought rang through her mind.

_What… What **is** she? What kind of a monster **is** she?_

* * *

Lyn slammed the door behind her, her bloody hand slipping at the lock twice before she reminded herself to slow down. She sobbed, her hand still at the lock, then hissed at the pain her arm caused her.

"V-V-Vulnerary," she choked out, but no, her body wouldn't move. She couldn't move. She wouldn't allow that to happen. For some strange reason, she thought as soon as she released the lock on the door, Peri would smash down the door. And Peri would grin at her, oh she would, with those red eyes wide in glee, foaming at the mouth, growling a guttural growl not humanly possible.

Lyn's entire body shook. She sobbed again, quieter, as if trying to not be heard.

_Oh Father Sky and Mother Earth, embrace me and protect me from the abomination who stands outside—the windows!_

Lyn wailed hysterically to see the drapes on the window open. It was facing _her_, facing the monster. Lyn could see the dim outline of her body hunched forward.

She couldn't take it anymore. Lyn stumbled to the window, her sword clattering to the floor and her feet upsetting the bowls of the now-cold broth and sending them rolling and sloshing—_with blood_, a voice in Lyn's head said ominously—and yanked down the drapes, then on to the next window.

She went a roundabout way through the small hut, throwing off the cover of one of the chests and seized a vulnerary, dropped it, took out another one, clumsy from desperation as she ran back to the door. Was it…_moving_?

"_NO!_" Lyn cried out, slamming against the door—which was indeed opening—and locked it again, her fingers white from holding the lock so hard. The blood on her hands had dried into a gruesome crust. "NO! NO! _PLEASE_ FATHER SKY! MOTHER EARTH!" She paused to gasp frailly. "Don't let me die, please…please…" Lyn's hysteria subsided into sobs again. "Please…"

"Lyn."

Lyn froze.

"Open…the door."

Lyn's voice was locked in her throat again. _No_, she mouthed, but the words didn't form into sound. She shook her head. No, she couldn't open the door. She _wouldn't _open the door.

"Lyn, I want my pack. Just give that to me, and I'll leave."

Lyn shook her head vehemently. No, no, no!

"Lyn, I'm not going to hurt you. On my honor."

"Honor?" Lyn squeaked. Honor? What monster had honor?

"Yes, honor. I swear on my honor I will not hurt you; just hand me my pack and I'll go away."

"Honor?" Lyn still was unable to comprehend.

"Lyn, open the damn door or I'll force it open or break in through a window."

"No," Lyn whispered. "No…" Now the words came stronger. "No, you will not come in here!"

"I won't need to if you'll just hand me my pack! I'm getting impatient, Lyn! Open the door or I _will_ break in through a window!"

"NO! GO AWAY! _LEAVE!_" Lyn shouted.

Outside, Snake growled softly and wiped blood from her mouth onto the back of her hand, looked down at it for a moment, then licked it off. Lyn was taking the joy out of her most recent and most glorious meal out of her. She usually dwelled on the taste, the satisfaction, for the rest of the day, but Lyn was really getting on her nerves.

Snake growled louder, reaching down to the grass where her cloak was strewn. "Lyn, I'm coming in." She whipped the cloak around her body, enclosing her from the harmful sunlight, her skin already itching.

Lyn, leaning heavily against the door, bent down and reached with her left hand for the sword she had dropped in her haste to close the windows. She reached and reached but her fingers were mere inches from what she felt was now her lifeline.

Footsteps. Lyn looked back at the door behind her. They were fading. Lyn stepped forward, grabbed the sword, slammed back onto the door—which had remained closed—and tried to calm herself. She could do nothing if her mind was frantic with panic. She could not think, could not form plans.

The sound of glass shattering shocked her out of her planning. Everything turned into a standstill. Lyn's eyes were transfixed upon glass, tinkling as they barely tapped each other and sparkling in the sunlight; the drape was billowing inwards. Peri was in midair, arms covering her face, body rolled up into a ball. She smoothly rolled on the ground and was on her feet in a fluid, practiced movement.

Lyn drew in a breath and silently stepped forward, swinging her blade—swinging right past the bacchri's face. There was a moment of just plain white; Lyn saw nothing else. Then she found herself on the floor, her right arm now not only wounded by the axe but also cut by the broken glass.

Peri towered over her; her pack slung was over her left shoulder and resting on her right hip, an almost pitiful look in her eyes.

"Miss, please awaken! This is no place to sleep! It is dangerous!" Peri mocked in her low, melodic voice, a smirk on her face. "How true." She stepped over the glass shards on the floor and swept the drapes aside, hurtling out of the window. She called over her back, "Don't think of me too harshly. I tend to punish criminals. Murderers, rapists, whatever I believe is worth a death sentence… Oh, and, thanks."

Lyn lay on the ground, unable to understand what was happening again. She looked, unwillingly but unable to help herself, to the window that Peri had left through. Her throat was cracking dry now, and she was breathless again to see the monster's face poke back in, a serious look on her—no, _its_ face.

"Heed your own advice, Lyn. Go to the city, find some friends, don't live alone, _especially_ so close to the Taliver Mountains. I thought the massacre of your tribe would have taught you that much."

Lyn didn't answer, her emotional self so worn out now that she could no longer do anything but feel numb and unattached to the world. She couldn't even wince at the mention of her painful past. She only had a fleeting wondering as to why the monster was still poking her head in Lyn's hut.

"Lyn…if you die, who will notice?"

Lyn didn't feel like answering anymore. All she wanted now was for everything to be over. She didn't even consider the event to be a nightmare; everything seemed so real.

"No one will notice," Peri answered for her. "Your lonely, unconnected existence is very tempting to take away. Your best option would be to get away from here as fast as you can, so I won't be tempted to return and hunt you for a snack if I pass by again. I am heading west."

Lyn closed her eyes. Exhaustion was taking her now. The world was fading.

"Pray we won't meet again." These last words rung in her thoughts and seeped into her dreams.

The next morning, Lyn packed up all her prized belongings and headed east, for Bulgar. Too often she thought back to the meeting with Peri. It suddenly seemed unreal when she was standing in the hot sun and cool breezes found exclusively in her beloved plains, but the shattered glass, the pain in her arm, the scratch-marks, were all reminders that something did happen.

Maybe she was hallucinating anyway? Being alone could do that, could drive one crazy.

But she couldn't force herself to forget. No, she _wanted_ to remember. It was the beginning of a new life for her, one beginning no one save Peri would know of.

_Viperidae,_ Lyn thought, never without a shudder to follow and a sudden dryness in the throat and clammy hands that remained wet no matter how often she would rub it against her dress. _Viperidae. What __**is**__ she?_

* * *

_**Hope you enjoyed. :) Next chapter coming as soon as I can reformat it. Please leave a note regarding what you think will happen between Lyn and Viperidae and I will take on the challenge to surprise you instead. :)  
**_


	2. Shadowed

**_All right, putting up a couple more chapters. :D Uh..."editing" at 3AM may require more editing. Please don't mind the typos or whatnot...Kind of just want to get these posted right now... It's been 3+ years since I had truly worked on this story, so I can assure you starting chapter 9 the writing is going to get a helluva lot better. Until then, hopefully the plot can keep you anchored. _  
**

* * *

**Lifeblood**

**By TayteFFN**

**Part One: Pride and Dignity**

**Chapter Two: Shadowed**

**Early April**

_Viperidae, _Snake thought with a grimace. _Why did I give her __**that**__ name?_ She turned her attention away from it, and back to the clapping thunder. It was as if Nature was orchestrating whatever hindrance it could to stop her from reaching the Taliver.

_I cannot reach Taliver within even three weeks…not without food… _She cursed softly to herself for so long ago sucking out her horse's blood. It wasn't hers, of course, but it was a horse. Now she had to return to Bulgar, work to gain enough money to buy another horse, then embark on a blind journey to the Taliver Mountains in hopes of humans with a satisfactory 'evil' in them for her to hunt on along the way. She would arrive to Bulgar in time, of course, but going from Bulgar to the Taliver Mountains the traditional way was a month-long journey.

And this time, she wouldn't bother appeasing herself with any animal blood.

* * *

She'd journeyed a day west from Lyn's hut, then turned back to the hut with her new decision. She'd caught scent of prey moving toward her from the south and determined she might meet them back at Lyn's hut. If Lyn was still there, Snake might have help…if Lyn could so much as move in fear of Snake's very presence. Otherwise she'd only be in the way.

When Snake returned to see the hut, Lyn's scent was scattered in the house, but she couldn't tell if Lyn was still inside or not. She stood in the plains, not even attempting to hide. What from? The barricade of the northern village hid her from the villagers, and she would smell anyone else within the vicinity. Snake wrapped herself in her green robe, covering every inch of her skin, her hood up to keep her face shaded. Flaking skin was an annoyance she always preferred to do without. She waited and watched for a minute to see if there was any activity, but the undisturbed condition of the broken window and the drape half in and half out the way she left it, hanging by a measly contact morsel, had almost convinced her that Lyn must have left in a hurry when she returned to her wits.

Prey was drawing near. She would only have to wait an hour more or so.

Well, no point in standing out in the sun when she could be inside in the shade.

When she was inside again, she noted the mess. The bowls still left with broth spilling over the turned sides. The blood from Lyn's arm, not fazing Snake when she was still quite full (but fresh blood never hurt). _The bedroll is gone._ There were empty chests scattered on the floor, an almost empty vulnerary. What caught Snake's eye was a mirror hidden underneath a toppled chest.

She squatted on hams and carefully turned the chest aside and picked the mirror off the floor. There were drops of blood on the ornately carved handle, a glorious polished dark wood.

Snake stared at it for a moment, then tucked it into one of many pockets in her trousers. There were always uses for the plainest things, beyond what one would guess.

Snake raised her eyes at a hollering sound, snapped out of her search but not unexpectedly. Her prey was here, announcing their arrival like idiots. She stood up again, patted the pocket containing the mirror, walked calmly out the door and crawled through the grass, ready to observe the prey and catch them off-guard.

* * *

It didn't rain half as much as it did before, and so Snake made quick time to Bulgar, in four days after the precautionary meal. Half a mile from the city, she caught the bittersweet tang again, coming from the south. It was _strong_. If that meant there were many from afar or a few nearby she could not tell but…suddenly luck was on her side.

If there was such a thing.

_I will hunt later,_ she reminded herself, not hungry yet. _First…funds…_

* * *

She entered the city, wondering if she could get into the line of bounty hunter.

_Probably not. I am as likely to be the hunted—perhaps made an easier target if I show myself that way._

The stench was overwhelming. Snake slipped a green shawl that she had tucked in her belt out and, as she had often done, masked her face. The contrast of the green to her pallid face, sharp eyes and jet hair made her look rather…unique. She got curious and suspicious glances, but nothing alarming. She was careful not to stare into the eyes of Sacaen men—it was considered a challenge, and incredibly impudent for a woman. She stayed away from taverns as well. If things got rowdy…and if she couldn't control a sudden spasm of thirst upon seeing blood…

She found work mucking out inn stables first. Two hours later, she was 6 gold pieces richer. She went on. Needing no sleep, she worked on through the night, turning out to have a total of 45 gold pieces earned overnight for delivering messages (one of them an interesting message from a prostitute to the 'Heaven's Breads' baker), washing laundry for an inn maid (she wanted to rest and paid in advance from her own pocket), delivering items such as vegetables and strips of meat to a pregnant vendor, and much more. Even though the stench of the city and the mask she wore did hinder her sense of smell, she was able to find her way through shortcuts in the city by analyzing the strength of the scent of the buildings and carving a map into her mind for herself.

Several weeks of this and she would be set with a horse and a cache of food for both the horse and herself. Then, instead of heading straight through the Sacaen Plains and gambling everything in one shot, she would head southwest to Lycia, then northwest into Etruria and would enter the Taliver Mountains from the there. It would take longer…it held perhaps more risk, but she could predict things better. And the ultimate reward was worth it. She could hunt righteously for _years _without being found. No, that wasn't the reward. It was life, wasn't it?

It was risky, very risky. Heading southwest meant heading through Bern…and risking getting caught by the Black Fang on the way. And the base in Lycia…she couldn't forget that…

She could not let that happen, though sometimes she wondered why. What would she lose? Her life? What did her life mean when all she lived for was her next meal? Her life was of no more worth than an animal's, if that was the case.

She replied with 'doing justice to the world ridding it of criminals,' but she knew she was merely deluding herself that way. She only half believed it.

If she managed to the Taliver Mountains, she would do something more. Ridding the world of the Taliver, one at a time, slowly, steadily…until they dispersed upon realizing the Mountains had changed upon her arrival, and some danger was picking off their…comrades…one. By. One.

_Slow and steady wins the race. Money for that horse first!_

* * *

An afternoon two weeks later, Snake felt feverish from excitement. The bittersweet tang… Not just radiating from the city, but from the south… It was so close…

But to underestimate her prey would be fatal. She needed to know numbers, needed to know _what _she smelled. This kind of a feast… She hadn't had such a feast in her life—not one she could remember. She had had three meals in her stay at Bulgar, the last being four days before. And now, the bittersweet tang from the south was one she had an appetite for.

* * *

She glided in her pine cloak, hood covering her face, to the south entrance in what would be considered frenzy for her. Her steps were not rushed, but her eyes were wild again. She stepped out of the city and inhaled.

_Surprise, surprise, _she thought to herself, amused. _Lyn's out there too. I should veer away from here…but this is tempting… No. Control, Snake. Your weakness and strength._

Had she moved to turn around, however, she would have been clobbered by the destriers of either one of two passing knights, one armored red, his partner green.

_Oh? One's taking out a lance. I wonder just what they're up to. Is there going to be a battle? _Her heart was speeding. _I can't miss this, now, can I? I'm not so arrogant or fortunate that I could overlook a free meal, can I?_

Her stomach answered for her. It seemed to say, "You never pass up free meals!" Behind her mask, she grinned.

* * *

Some of Snake's prey had gathered around Lyn. They had been warded away by the arrival of the two knights, but they stood talking with Lyn and the knights for a while before the bandits dispersed away.

Unperturbed, Snake slowly, patiently, advanced upon them, slowing even further when she entered hearing range.

"No! This is my fight! Stay out!" came Lyn's voice as she spoke to the red-haired knight.

Snake smiled, then said in her low voice, "But didn't I tell you to find yourself some friends, Lyn? It is dangerous for a woman to be out alone. I thought you'd learned that by now."

Lyn's back went rigid. The two knights turned on their saddles to look down at the newcomer, surprise writ on their faces, soon replaced by distrust on the red-haired knight as he looked back to Lyn, then to Snake.

"And who would you be?" he asked.

"A friend," Snake replied with a careless shrug.

Lyn still hadn't moved.

"Tell me, do you two knights have experience in leading battles?" asked Snake.

The green-haired knight was shaking his head before he met the red-haired knight's glare. Then he stopped abruptly, confused as to what to do.

"Then I'll take command," Snake said, stopping only three steps away from Lyn, who was visibly shaking. "I'm hoping the two of you are better fighters than Lyn, but I won't assume that."

"Why are you doing this?" asked the red-haired knight.

The bacchri looked up at him with her head cocked in puzzlement. She reached up to her face and removed the mask and secured it onto her belt as the knight asked again, "Why are you helping us?"

"To eliminate a problem efficiently," the bacchri replied, just as serious as the red-haired knight. "Lyn and I are heading northwards. There aren't many foes that way. You and your green-armored friend can catch up to us taking the southern bandits, cross the bridge, then swing north. Take each bandit together—it will make things faster for you."

The red-haired knight stiffened, then looked down to Lyn. "No, I'm afraid I cannot agree to that. Milady Lyndis is—"

"No, Kent," Lyn whispered, her voice hollow. Snake watched her, amused, as the girl turned around to face the bacchri but not ready to meet her eyes. "No, I will be fine."

"Then it's settled," Snake said, looking up to Kent, daring him to challenge her. "Now we stop stalling and get to work. The way these idiots are scattered as they are, I would be very disappointed if we cannot take care of them…" She stepped around Sain's horse, barely glancing up at his confused face. "Lyn."

Lyn followed the expectant bacchri like an obedient dog did her master.

"Milady," Kent called, but Lyn shook her head dismissively. He watched the women stride through the grass, a considerable distance of about six feet between them until the stranger lagged unexpectedly. Lyn hesitated, almost freezing again, but continued to walk on, shoulders plainly tense.

"What was that?" Sain asked.

"Whoever that woman is…I don't trust her," Kent muttered.

"She seems…forceful. Ah, I didn't get her name!"

"Sain."

"I know, I know."

"No, you don't. Stay away from her. She seems…dangerous."

Sain cocked a doubtful brow then. "Really?"

The bacchri turned back to the men while still walking, now some sixty yards away. "MOVE!" she called.

Kent narrowed his eyes, unwilling to take orders from the stranger. "Let's go, Sain."

"Yessir!"

* * *

"So?" asked Peri. "Why did you say 'no' to the knight? He saw you were clearly uncomfortable with me."

Lyn tramped steadily, her eye on the brigand a while away from her, her heart racing madly. She was terrified to have her back to Peri, but was afraid of closing the distance between them to get behind Peri.

"Answer me, Lyn."

Lyn felt like she had a desert in her throat. She croaked back a soft answer. "I…I …didn't want them…to… They would be caught unaware—"

Peri chuckled behind her—not a low, monstrous chuckle Lyn expected—a normal woman's chuckle, yet even that raised goose bumps on Lyn's arms.

"I see. You'd rather put yourself in danger, knowing what they do not."

Lyn's hand tightened on the hilt of her sword. It gave her some confidence. "Why are you here? You said you were traveling west!"

"Complications… But they had nothing to do with you. Don't worry about that."

"And why are you helping us now?"

"Think about it. Who benefits?"

Lyn's eyes widened.

"You're crying," Peri noted. "I can smell it."

"Do you think two knights are going to watch you…your monstrosity and do nothing about it?"

"I am no idiot. I don't feed in front of people." After a dramatic pause, "You won't _tell_ them, will you?"

There was silence from Lyn.

"You intend on telling them, then. That does not bother me. However, you should be honest with yourself. Who will believe you?"

Lyn bit her tongue, anguished. That was true—who _would_ believe her claim?

"You see why I am not worried," Peri said.

They walked on quietly for a moment, Lyn's nerves almost audibly prickling.

"Don't rely on the arm you had wounded," Peri said.

Lyn knew better than to. It still felt weak, unconnected; it felt strange.

"Try not to get hurt," Peri continued. "And…try not to make this too bloody."

Lyn looked up. The bandit was charging at her, mouthing some obscenity at her, yet she couldn't hear it. Like that day she had fought to save Peri, the world turned and swirled into confusing images, yet Lyn knew exactly what she was doing.

"I told you not to make things bloody," Peri hissed. Lyn turned around—met Peri's eyes—then dropped her eyes away. "You ruin my meals. This is the _second_ time!" Peri looked back down at the bandit, his body carved upon the ground. "This one's useless." She growled. "Never mind! Let's go!"

* * *

Lyn watched Peri pass her warily, then followed.

Snake glanced over to the knights. _Sporting a lance?_ She didn't expect the green-armored knight to be so stupid._ Is he truly a knight? Even the bandits are too agile to be speared like that when the knights do not have surprise or a charge to begin with! And that axe could simply break the lance's shaft in half!_

_And as for my meal… _

"Whoa! I _missed_?" Sain's voice drifted to Snake's ears.

"Sain! Why aren't you using your sword?" Kent hollered.

"But the lance is more heroic! A knight should look heroic, don't you think?"

"You're hopeless. If you don't take fighting more seriously, you're going to find yourself at the end of a blade!"

"Truth be told…I…forgot…to buy a sword."

"Forgot? Or too busy dallying with the ladies?"

Snake dismissed the exchange, reprimanding herself for her rising temper.

_Stop being ridiculous! So long as I feed on one of them within an hour of his death… _Snake reminded herself.

She threw a dagger at the leader, followed by two more before Lyn got in her way. Her first dagger missed his face by four inches, the second found its mark on his knee, the third lodged in the arm he held his axe with. He dropped his axe—and Lyn chopped his head off with ease.

Snake hissed, anguished to see the blood loss. She could only imagine how the knights had taken care of _their _bandits.

"If you don't want me to kill him this way, you do it yourself!" Lyn yelled back at her, furious.

"I _would_ _have_ if you didn't get in the way!" Snake growled.

"Milady!" came the call of the red-haired knight from across the field.

"Now just do whatever you can to get away from here quickly!" Snake muttered as she and Lyn watched the knights draw near.

"Milady, you are unharmed," the red-haired knight said, relieved. He slowed his destrier and dismounted. Behind him, his friend was not as dignified; he swung himself off of the saddle and jogged to the women with a smile.

"Your words were true!" he said, taking one of Snake's hands and putting his lips to it gently. "The bandits were taken care of swiftly!"

Lyn cried out in shock and disgust, Kent in dismay; they drowned out Snake's astonished gasp.

"Your hands are frigid cold!" Sain said, surprised. He put her hand to his cheek. "Such white hands I'd never seen before! They are even more pristine than the newly fallen snow!"

Snake bowed her head to hide behind a wall of her chin-length black hair. _Pristine? As in clean? Pure? Untainted? _

"As is your face! How it outshines the moon! Those exotic eyes!" Sain leaned forward to see her face, for the hood left the upper half of her face in shadow. Snake unconsciously held her breath. Never had a man voluntarily brought his face this close to hers—Sain's nose was almost touching hers. The other men were too afraid…and they should have been. "Your blush is lovely, madam. Please, would you give me your name? Or even better, your company?"

"Sain!" came the red-haired knight's stern voice.

"_Don't touch her!_" Lyn slapped Sain's hand, taking a place between Sain and Snake. He let go, startled. Lyn then turned to Snake, her face pallid yet unable to be quite as pale as Snake's. "Go… Go, you've done enough for us! Please, _leave_!"

Snake turned on her heel immediately, and, after retrieving her daggers, walked away towards Bulgar; her appetite had disappeared. She held her right hand in front of her and looked at its back, mesmerized.

_He is a fool, _she thought. _An absolute fool._

But, as it did rarely happen, she smiled.

Next time, however, she'd take offense.

* * *

_I've been too slow, _Snake thought four days later. _Beyard…_

She swept unknowingly into a bakery, her eyes trailing a blond man aged in his late thirties, cloaked in red, a sword sheathed at his waist. She thought she felt her heart jump, but couldn't tell for what.

_The Black Fang isn't going to let a deserter just leave? How problematic. And I don't have that horse yet…_

She turned away from the windows to the baker, hiding her conspicuous features.

"Miss? Can I interest you in something?" asked the baker, his smile wavering when her hood fell and her blood-red eyes.

_Unfortunately… _"No."

The baker was startled, then unsure what to say. An awkward silence stretched, but Snake didn't notice as she moved towards a window, turned her back to it and took out the mirror she salvaged in Lyn's hut.

"Miss, if I may—"

"No." Snake tried not to care what he was going to ask, concentrating on keeping Beyard in her sight. Twice she lost him, then he turned up at the corner of the street. Once he disappeared around the corner, she turned and walked out of the door, pocketing the mirror and taking the cloth she used as a mask.

_I have to get out of here. Now._

* * *

Snake glanced the horse over. She wasn't a horse expert, but thanks to Uhai she knew basics to choosing a good horse. The mare looked young, fresh, powerful. But then so did the rest of the horses. But the price she was about to pay, 2,000 gold (something she couldn't have achieved in eighteen days without a major amount having been pick-pocketed), for this one horse—was that a bargain or a cheat? The last horse she had she got for free—stole would be more accurate. It was a damn good horse—why did she _have_ to experiment her diet on him?

She handed the gold coins over, hoping she wouldn't regret it. She was in a hurry, and should've been in a hurry for a while. The Black Fang's fingers reached far beyond Bern.

Assembled at the southern gates of Bulgar with her horse, her pack, and herself, she had a fleeting moment to wonder where the foolish green-armored knight was (and what idiotic thing he was doing at the moment). Shaking her head at this thought, she mounted the gentle amber mare.

When Snake was far out into the open fields and did not detect anyone in the range of her nose that night, she slowed the horse, took off her cloak, adjusted it over her pack, then continued onwards. Although she was shivering in the cold when she could have been cozy in her cloak, she rode on in the manner until dawn anyways, unable to understand why. Once the sun began to peek over the edge of the horizon, she adjusted the cloak over her skin again, found a sheltered area in the trees, picketed the horse to it and sat on the grass, resting herself but more importantly her horse. She nibbled on some bread, irritated that she needed human food to keep _up_ her strength, and blood to keep it from _diminishing_.

The bittersweet tang flew into her nose in the late afternoon. She ignored it. She wouldn't need to satisfy her unique thirst for quite a while. The horse was satisfied with the occasional carrot and oats and the grass, and sleep.

When evening came, Snake awoke the horse and set off again, the sleeves of her cloak tied around her neck. Its movement had kept her on edge at first—she didn't like the movement around her neck. With a smirk, she assumed this was how her victims felt. She didn't regret terrifying them. Not in the least.

* * *

The next evening came with the nagging of the bittersweet scent; not long after, Snake identified Lyn's scent.

_I will not meddle in her problems. She's at the temple, surely… She'll fend off the men, if she's with the two knights. No, she would do so with or without the knights._

_Or at least die trying._

After consulting to her maps, Snake nudged the mare in the general southern direction, heading for the closest town to Sacaen settlement to replenish food and water.

* * *

Tramping steps just behind her forced Snake to turn around, her hood falling off.

It was a chilly night—a fresh night, Snake would have said to her subordinates were she leading a mission—and the night was a glittering indigo. The mare, _Horse_ she had simply dubbed her, snorted, energetic from the rest she had.

"It is dangerous to travel by night," said a man, his hair auburn and brushed back slightly, his dark eyes lightly interested. He had a crooked smile and an impressive build, an axe at his belt.

"I am well aware of that," Snake replied, surprised he hadn't been scared away by her eyes yet, or perhaps the torches behind her didn't light her eyes.

"And you're still going out at this time? Alone?"

"I am."

For a moment, the two had a somewhat of a staring contest before the man spoke again. "You don't carry out conversations much, do you?"

Snake blinked, unable to think of what to reply with. The man still smiled however, so instead of hopelessly searching an answer, she began to wonder how often she'd been smiled at. She inhaled deeply, unconscious of this action. He smelled… pleasant. Not capable of evoking her hunger.

The silence had stretched to what would have normally been marked the end of conversation, but Snake picked it up this time. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

The man's smile grew wider. "Yeah, there is. You're being followed."

If it had not been for her strict training, Snake would have instinctively turned back to look for her stalker. Instead she said, "Well then, Master…?"

"Geitz."

"Master Geitz, thank you for telling me this. Is there something else you want?"

"Would you like to have dinner with me?"

"What?"

"You'll be safer this way. Two pairs of eyes on the lookout, you know?"

"No, I think I will pass."

"Yeah? Some other time then?"

Snake looked at the man for some time. "Why?"

"You don't look like you come outside often. It would do you good."

"I _am_ outside."

"You don't look like you're outside when the sun's out."

"What has this got to do with anything?"

"What's your name?"

"What?" Snake heard and understood what he said, of course.

"What's your name?"

"_Why?_" _Wait…What if this man is stalling me for an attack staged on me right now?_

The man replied, "So I can find you. I'll still want that dinner."

"Are you meaning to make _me_ pay for it?" Snake asked, putting on a show of going along but scanning her surroundings with her eyes. There was nothing in the shadows, nothing atop the gate, nothing pointing some sharp threat at her.

"Nope. It's on me. So, your name?"

"Melissa," Snake replied, steering Horse out of the village. "I bid you good night now, Master Geitz."

"Hmm. I like you. Not every day I meet a good woman."

Snake narrowed her eyes and halted Horse. "Good woman?"

"Yeah."

"What makes me…a good woman?"

Geitz shrugged. "I don't know. I… Gut feeling, 'kay?"

"I…don't understand."

"Gut feeling, instincts, intuition. I could tell you're a good woman, just like that."

Snake turned away from the man. "You're strange, and I'm leaving."

"Red eyes."

Snake froze, waiting for him to finish.

"They say it's a mark of evil."

"I am painfully aware of that as well."

"Do you believe that? Do you believe you're evil?"

Snake looked back at the man with an irritated expression. "It does not matter what I think."

"Does that mean yes?"

"Do _you_ believe it?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you still talking to me? Do you want to _die_?"

"Well…you're interesting."

"_Interesting_?" Snake checked her temper.

"You happen to be stalked, you have red eyes, you're secretive—"

"And _you're_ slowing me down!"

"Why _are _you in a rush anyway?"

"Keep your nose out of my business. Am I understood?" Snake blinked, her stomach plummeting. That was how she spoke in the Black Fang. Do this. Am I understood? Do that. Am I understood?

If Beyard was following her, she'd surely been identified by now.

She kicked the mare into a trot, unable to help look back over her shoulder at the man standing at village's gates. He gave a casual, one-handed wave back to her.

Snake turned around.

_Men._

* * *

Snake tweaked her nose with a bloody finger two months later. Yes, this was definitely Taliver blood…the spice of slaughter was in this blood. It confirmed her suspicions; not many bandits were willing to be so ruthless in killing entire populations of villages, especially being so closely numbered. They had grown bold.

The stark blue sky mocked the dead; the pressing June sun baking the slaughtered remains. The stench was overpowering.

Satisfied with the meal, Snake stood up again and whistled for the mare. Horse was hesitant and cautious to wade to her mistress through a mass of carcasses, disturbed. Snake turned her Taliver bandit prey on his side, taking out a knife, then striking it into the flesh between the neck and shoulder, so the two teeth mark-holes were widened into slits. No one would guess someone had sucked blood out of the man unless the body was opened and examined…

Goosebumps rose along her entire body. If the Black Fang were searching for her…they would be checking on the dead bodies for this very technique…

She mounted the mare, ignoring the pillage around her, though it irritated her. She was not completely immoral, though monster she was. So many had died…if only she'd come faster… But did she couldn't help wondering if that was because she would have dined better.

Her mare neighed; she thought it sounded distant, but even so it was shocking after only the whispering wind carrying the putrid smells of the Taliver.

She rechecked her surroundings, alarmed. She had assumed all the surviving Taliver had left. Was it possible the stench of the dead had blinded her from the living?

Now that she thought of it…there was another scent…like…apples…?

A piercing scream shattered the world. More neighing. No, she wasn't imagining the neighing being far away. It wasn't _her_ horse at all!

Swiftly riding into the ruins of a collapsed, smoldering house, she left her horse with her pack slung around its broad neck in the ruins, then stepped carefully around and over the smoldering wood. Her boots were essential, and now would be a terrible time to lose them, with the dead bodies and lingering disease…

She followed the sound of struggle, hands swiftly brushing the cloak aside, her hands had clasped two daggers each, ready to be hurled into Taliver skulls.

"Please! Please let me free—!" came a young girl's voice.

"Are you kiddin' me? Imagine just how much you would sell for in the slave markets…or worse… And this pegasus, even more!"

The tiny orchid-haired girl blanched, struggling ineffectively against two bandits, her arms clenched in the hands of one, the second smirking, a dirty hoof mark on his face.

Blood leaked onto that smirk. Said bandit's eyes rolled back and he fell to the soggy ground, scaring the pegasus away several steps. The pegasus would not leave his mistress, however. _It's been trained in loyalty, _Snake noted, impressed. _If only it could be done to humans._

"What the…?" the first bandit asked, letting go of the girl.

"Behind you," answered Snake.

The bandit made the fatal mistake of turning around and receiving a dagger between the eyes, just like his friend. The girl shrieked, horrified, and staggered backwards to the pegasus. The man collapsed at her feet.

For a moment, neither woman nor girl moved.

Snake kneeled at the bandit's head, retrieving her dagger from the first, then from the next.

"So," she said to the girl. "Your name."

"F-F-F-F-F—"

"Forget that," Snake said, shaking her head. "Little girls like you shouldn't be traveling alone. So…" She wiped her daggers clean as she watched the quivering girl. "How did this happen?"

The girl whimpered. Behind her, the pegasus neighed and pushed the girl forward by the small of her back, encouraging.

"I-I was looking for a friend!" the girl said in a rushed squeak, gaining just enough confidence. "A-A-And…" Tears welled up in her eyes and she was beginning to sob. Snake looked back to her daggers, wiping a clot roughly off it, then clipped the dagger into its sheath at her waist.

"You can't speak again?"

The girl shook her head. Snake stood up, eyeing the petite girl. _Floral scent and apples._ She cocked her head. Lifting her fingers to her lips, she froze. She was about to lick the blood off, then whistle to Horse, but that would be unwise. Especially in front of this frail girl. The poor girl looked like she was a carefully balanced pole ready to tip over if someone so much as poked her forehead with a feather.

Snake let her hand fall to her side, eyes locked with the girl's teary orchid ones, then she turned away and walked off towards the ruins, cursing the sun that was beginning to sting at the skin on her face.

"W-W-Wait!" the girl cried, following her and being followed in turn by her pegasus.

Snake kept walking. "You want to tell me something?"

"Eep!"

"Talk to me when you can. I don't bite…hard."

The girl whimpered.

Snake stopped. "What are you following _me_ for?"

When she got no answer except skittering rocks, she spun on her heel and put her hands on the girl's shoulder. Snake realized the girl barely came up to her shoulders.

"Look at me when I talk to you, little lady," she said.

The girl squeaked surprise again, ready to burst into tears, her arms raised protectively between her and the bacchri.

_This girl's been beaten before._

"Listen hard. There is a village nearby, isn't there?" Snake said, her gaze intense.

The girl opened her mouth in an attempt to say something, then settled for nodding meekly.

"Then take your pegasus, go to the village, and tell them to bar the gates—the bloodbaths aren't over yet. Am I understood?"

Once again, the girl attempted to speak and nodded instead.

The bacchri inhaled, relaxed slightly, then let the girl free. "Go. Before they come back."

In urgency, the girl found her voice. "B-B-But what about—"

"Don't worry about me," Snake said carelessly. "I've always managed to come out of these messes alive. On the other hand," Snake's expression hardened. "You won't last long here. Go."

The girl gazed up at the woman, her face showing the conflict inside of her.

"Go," Snake said a final time. "Or waste the very life I bothered to save moments ago." Snake hesitated, then turned away and walked on into the ruins.

The skittering sounds and a neighing announced the girl's departure.

Snake sniffed the air again as she pulled her cloak over her head, slowing the thoughts flashing through her mind. _The greatest danger to me right now is Horse. If she gives me away… I might have to kill her. Shame…it took so much work and time to buy her. _Snake looked up at the pale, drained sky, her hand reaching for the dagger with which she liked to perform her special kills. Her fingers brushed upon the familiar insignia on the one dagger of hers that did not match all the others. _Keep me safe another day, Lone Rhombus, so that we might meet your true holder once more._

* * *

_**Please review, that makes me happy and encourages me to keep writing (granted this is re-uploading, but I am writing ahead too...).**  
_


	3. Apprehension

**Lifeblood**

**By TayteFFN**

**Part One: Pride and Dignity**

**Chapter Three: Apprehension**

**Early June**

* * *

Florina opened her mouth, her voice locked in her throat. No, she couldn't be unable to speak now! That woman needed her now!

_Like Farina did, so many times—and she couldn't speak—_

She banked her pegasus down into the center of the village, drawing suspicious eyes of the villagers and startling several young children at play. Children, she could talk to—even boys. Thank the Goddess!

"P-Please!" she called to one of the scattering children. "Please, my fuh-friend is in danger! There a-are bandits ou-outside, and she's hiding in the ru-ruins of a vih-village southeast! Please, can anyone huh-help me?"

_Bandits!_, _No!_, _Already?_ and _Vera, get inside the house! Now!_ were a few of the assortment of reactions Florina heard distinctly.

There was a terrified murmuring within the villagers on the street. A woman rushed into a house, and then came out with several other women, all murmuring anxiously at the newcomer.

"P-Please!" Florina cried out to them, her stomach a roiling wreck, her cheeks sopping with new tears. "Please, you huh-huh-have to help her!" It was the loudest she had ever spoken to anyone. "She saved me, and I cuh-cannot live without shame if I cannot do the suh-same for her! Please, can someone help me? Anybody! Plea-hease!"

One of the men approached her and shook his head. He wore violet robes, and his long, dark hair was streaked with gray and tied behind his back. "I'm afraid it is far too dangerous. That village is a day's walk away. We cannot risk our men when they may be needed for this village."

Florina did not understand. Perhaps it was the hostile look on the man's broad face.

"P-P-Please sir," Florina collapsed to her knees and bowed to him. Oh how Farina would have berated her if she saw this. Even Fiora would have turned away, scarlet-faced. And what would her father have said… "Please, you have to help her, sir! I wou-would not be here had she not—" A thought struck Florina silent. How _did_ the woman know of more bandits? It was so sudden, and Florina had not seen anything to alert her. Before she could let herself fall into doubt of the woman, before she could think of the embarrassment she might face if it was untrue, Florina clasped her hands and begged, "P-P-Please, she needs heh-help! They could be kih-killing her _right now_!"

"_I_'ll go."

Florina looked up, startled, into the face of what she thought was an angel (for the moment). A kind-looking young man, perhaps eighteen, dressed in a blue tunic with a belt stretched from his left shoulder to his right hip, was smiling down at her, taking one of her hands, then the other, and helping her rise. His russet hair was messy, (_Did I ruin his nap?_ Florina wondered. Realizing that was a strange thought for the moment, she shook it away.) but his eyes were very gentle.

"I-I-I—" Florina couldn't express her immense gratitude, simply shaking her head searching for a way.

"You've been so kind to me, Senior Jatis," the man said, turning away from Florina and to the village magistrate, his face grave. "I understand your concerns for your village, but I myself can't just sit around."

The village magistrate looked to the people surrounding them. Most, Florina realized, were women of middle age or older. They nodded. The village magistrate then spoke, "But know well that no blood of the people of this village shall be spent on retrieving either of you."

The man in the blue tunic nodded respectfully, then turned back to Florina. "Come on; I'll help you." Then, in an amiable over-the-tea voice, he added, "By the way, the name's Wil."

* * *

"Don't hold it against the villagers," Wil explained as he quickly readied his own horse in the stables of the village inn.

Florina now could barely hear him over the thrumming of her own heart. She stroked Huey as he greedily lapped at the water in the troughs. What was happening to that woman now? How much time had passed? Pegasi could fly a day's walk in about an hour or so, but surely it was longer than that… She looked to the sky, but the sun was of no aid, for she did not remember its position when she was with the woman.

"Last year, this village was almost run down by bandits," said Wil. "They don't show it, but the whole town still hasn't healed well. They're all strong people, but they can't afford to lose anyone."

Florina nodded her understanding, pulling a resistant Huey away from the troughs. That was the way it was in Ilia.

"So," Wil said as he led his horse out. He now had a bow fastened to his back. "Where to?"

* * *

Huey nosed his way into the sky, struggling to climb into it after hardly a break. Florina, was she not an true and experienced pegasus rider, would have clung to him with both legs and fingers, but instead she vented her anxiety through unhooking a lance from the straps underneath his wings, careful as all pegasus riders had to be to not disturb the beating wings of their mounts. As she ascended through the air, the increasing chill did not disturb her; Ilian blood was incredibly resistant to cold. Warmth was not something they adapted to in just a few years. Her perspiration, however, was not due to the heat.

She scanned the vegetation that Wil rode through far beneath her. Soon he came into view out onto a road. She traced the road to the east. The lingering smoke Wil undoubtedly saw by now. There was no one between Florina and Wil, and the ruins. Though that should have put her to some ease, it only succeeded in curling Florina's stomach into itself with dread.

She dove back to the road, to Wil.

"Anything in sight?" she heard him ask when she flew overhead, the blowing dust and gravel swirling in eddies as far up as Wil's legs. She wheeled around and hovered, opened her mouth to reply and found it cracking, then shook her head to Wil. She saw him visibly relax. His bow was now strung. She should have been afraid—she always was afraid as soon as she saw that arching form; the very shape personified her fears, but she wasn't afraid of Wil.

For a moment, Florina wanted to ask him, wanted to burst out, _Aren't you afraid? Why do you wear that face? You don't even know her, but you come out to save a stranger like this—aren't you afraid? What if the bandits—what if there are too many? We're only two people! What can we do? We're only two people! And I—I don't even know what I could do! What if I—what if I can't do anything?_

—_just like before—_

_What if I can't **move**? Or worse, what if I… What if I…_

…fly away?

* * *

Seconds later, Florina couldn't breathe. It was almost a relief as well, for then her cracking throat no longer threatened her with coughing and dry heaving.

She was afraid of what she might see when the forestry beneath her terminated, suddenly becoming empty road and then the ruins of the village and—

It was bad enough, all those dead bodies. The smell. The smoldering thatched roofs. It was bad enough the first time. Was she really going back to that? And…and would that woman be part of them now?

She was, her legs lying under the carcass of an elderly woman, her face lying on the blood that flooded the ground underneath until one could not tell what the blood covered or how deep the blood was. Or whose.

Florina immediately dove and banked her pegasus, sliding off before the pegasus' hooves were all earth-locked. Her boots made contact with the ground and slipped in the red slush. Florina cried out, fell forward and jammed her nose upon Huey's saddle. She pushed off Huey with her arms, overbalanced and fell back onto one of the bodies and shrieked at the slimy feeling underneath her neck. She struggled to sit up, certain that some squirming hand would pull her back down by the back of her neck—that something would grin at her—that something—no, not now, that woman was waiting for her—she couldn't wait long—she—

Florina clumsily got to her feet, the tip of her nose skinned but forgotten, heart racing wildly out of control as she looked down at the dead man she fell on, his eyes rolled upwards so only the whites could be seen.

—don'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlook—

At last she reached the woman, who was pale as death, but rigid, motionless, her entire body save her two hands and her face covered by the cloak, one hand curled around a dagger. Florina was afraid to touch her. But what was there to be afraid of save what might have happened to her?

A hand twisted her arm behind her back. There was an unbelievable weight on her back, like a sharp-edged stone being driven into her spine and her arm being pulled upward, fat fingers groping into her hair. "We have a live poppet!" She thought she was going to _die_, she couldn't take it. Her back was going to cave in; her arm would come off like a straw doll's—Huey was screaming behind her—

"What have we here? A live one?" hollered another voice, distant.

"Augh! Get the damn horse off me!"

A jagged hoof struck Florina's forehead, tearing flesh off and spraying blood. She screamed. The weight reeled off for a moment, her arm was free—and then it came back, this time a foot on the back of her neck. Her face was cushioned by the hand of the woman that had saved her earlier. A sudden torrent of blood, spilling onto Florina's head. She screamed again. She felt the warm liquid spread down over her head, onto her forehead, over her eyes, dripping from her nose. Then she saw his foot—the one not stepping on her—stamp right onto the blood on the seeping ground—the blood splattered into her face—the body of the man plummeted away. His legs were still jerking, but Florina could never forget…the stump of neck…

Another battle cry: this was the other bandit she had heard. She didn't look up, she couldn't. She only huddled closer to herself and upchucked. Huey screamed again. Florina felt the rush of the beats of his wings on her back. She looked up.

A spear of reflected light struck her eyes and burned at the back of her eyeballs. She kept her eyes peeled open—everything was a shade of green for a moment and—the woman's cloak smacked at her face—there was a grunt of pain, then a shriek—

The woman was alive! Her dagger had sheathed itself in the left shoulder of the bandit charging towards the woman and Florina. Another dagger flew at him. Missed—another—missed—another dagger—a scream lodged in Florina's throat—

The bandit roared, his club coming down on the woman's shoulder, the dagger encased in her left hand dropping. The scream finally beat its way out of Florina's throat.

There was no sound. Her neck pained from craning upwards, Florina could see the bandit's face over the woman's shoulder, as if they were embracing, silhouettes against an apathetic sky. A trickle of blood crawled down the corner of his wide mouth, to his chin, and his eyes widened. He swayed backwards, once, twice, fell on his hindquarters with a strange croaking noise, slid back, as if to escape the woman, and he grew still. The woman stood towering against the sky for a moment, as if to make the statement "last one standing." Florina did not see her body shudder in the expansive folds of her cloak. She only saw her savior sink to her knees and fall beside the slaughterer.

* * *

Wil could feel his heart thrashing inside his chest. He was certain that it had just tore itself apart from his body and that it was rampaging around his rib cage like a charging bull. What had he gotten himself into? Just because he saw a cute little girl in distress did not mean he had to volunteer himself for this suicidal mission! He wasn't a warrior! He wasn't even capable of defending himself if his enemies came too close. The best he could procure for such a situation was a knife he used for daily tasks, and the most destructive of those tasks was skinning deer (which rarely happened) and cutting fruits (which also, given his poor status, didn't happen often). What was he doing out here, on this dusty road with demented plants crawling at the edges? He wasn't sure he could even handle seeing the dead bodies! He'd never even seen a dead person before! How was he going to save a woman who was _surrounded_ by dead bodies that would probably terrify him to death and live bodies that would help him _become_ dead? What in Elimine's name was he _doing_?

He wiped the sweaty palms of his hands on his shirt, glad the girl—_what was her name?_—was not able to see him. What was he to do? He was probably riding to the jaws of death. It was probably in his best interests to just turn around and never look back. Forget the girl, and the woman—pretend it didn't happen. It would be a shame he would live with, but at least he'd live to be ashamed. Who cared about honor? He couldn't afford that!

Wil bit his tongue, trying to keep tears from springing from his eyes. He didn't even think Elimine could have saved him this time. Who was he kidding? All he ever really wanted was to go back home. He didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to go back and be…and be his parents' accepted son…maybe marry that girl Rebecca, have a couple of kids, farm on the land on which he was born, where he wished to be buried, and live a happy life until then.

Yet he dismounted and left his horse in the trees, wishing the good animal a better fate than that of himself, and with quivering hands, he notched an arrow as soon as the putrid stench of the ruins hit him.

* * *

Florina put a hand in front of the woman's mouth. She was breathing, but barely. "N-No! Please! Please wake up!" Florina panicked, shaking the woman's shoulder.

No reaction.

Florina gulped again, wondering if shaking her shoulder had done more damage, then tackled the difficult task of lifting the woman long enough to get her onto the pegasus. Instructing herself to ignore the bandit she was kneeling on, she slung one of the woman's arms around her neck, then awkwardly tried to pull her up. No, that wouldn't work. Florina then tried to pull the woman up under the underarm. The woman was surprisingly heavy, like she was made of solid stone. Florina could not even drag the woman away.

"Come on…" Florina whispered, pleading. "Please…"

Huey moved closer to her instead.

Finally, she managed to lean the woman against Huey. But she was sliding back off.

"No!" Florina cried. "No, no!" The woman slipped off the side again.

The pegasus screamed again. Florina looked up to see three more of them, not having heard them in her desperate tries to get the woman onto Huey. They didn't look any friendlier to Florina.

Florina looked back at her pegasus, his side now bloody, then the woman, unconscious, her head lolling on Florina's lap. She had to get out of here. She had to _move_!

Breathing in gasps, Florina gracelessly pushed the woman's head off her lap and picked up the lance she'd dropped beside the woman just moments before. _Oh Goddess…_she thought.

She swiftly swung onto the pegasus as the three men started to run for her.

"Git back here!" one called. Out of his hand flew a hand axe.

Florina screamed. The axe had only grazed her right arm, making her drop her lance, but she was seeing black spots wherever her gaze turned. The men were—

"Florina!" came Wil's voice.

Florina blinked; the black spots cleared at once. One of the men that had chased her had an arrow in his shoulder. He howled in pain. His friends now charged at Wil instead.

Florina was affixed to the sky like the moon, unable to do anything but watch. _This is what I am,_ she thought distantly. _I knew I'd always be like this… I…I always knew… _She closed her eyes. _I can't even watch them __**die**__!_

"Harum, Liefsche, stop!" came a gruff, accented order from the wounded bandit. "We don't get paid to kill them!"

Florina, shocked, opened her eyes to watch the other two bandits dashed into ruins and out of Wil's line of fire. They voiced their anger to the some-and-forty-looking dark-haired man. "Carjiga! They killed Ransil and Guor!"

"Well, it looks like they've got reinforcements. We would have killed those sons of bitches anyway. No one liked them. Now let's get out of here!"

And with that, the bandit turned and began to flee. The other two grudgingly followed.

The tense silence that descended upon the ruins since the sudden departure of the bandits stretched so long Wil didn't believe he was awake. He decided to move in his dreamlike state, before he lost all nerve. Which fallen body was the one he had come to save? So many stinking, bloody carcasses and mouths in wordless 'O's and unblinking, unseeing eyes directed at the uncaring sky, where Florina still hung, her shame giving way to astonishment.

There was a sudden stirring; a pine green mound was rolling across a carcass not far away. He watched it, not understanding what was happening. With a start, his dreamlike state of mind vanished and he hurled himself towards struggling figure. If he looked at the dead for one moment more, he was afraid he would blind himself with his own knife.

* * *

Florina watched Wil speaking to the woman, who barely moved her lips to answer, eyes looking up at the sky, at Florina. They were numb eyes. Insensitive, dispassionate, numb eyes. Slowly, Florina descended to the ground, still stunned.

Wil dug through layer after layer of cloak; his face was livid when he turned to Florina approaching. Florina took one look at the woman's bloody shoulder, then turned away, regretting more than just the sight.

"Is it…t-terrible?" Florina squeaked.

Wil turned back to the woman. "I don't know, but it looks…"

"I'm bleeding," the woman whispered, her eyes unfocused. She continued hesitantly. "But I bleed…plentifully when I bleed. It might not be as…as bad as it looks… Please, I…" She hissed through clamped teeth, "I can't die yet…"

"Don't worry," Wil said, holding her hand comfortingly. "You won't die." Looking at Florina pleadingly, he went on, "We're not going to let you die."

"No," Florina said, panicking. "No, no!" She went to the woman and fell to her side. "No, you're not going to die! You can't die! You won't die! I won't let you die! Please, Wil, please, isn't there something else we can do for her? I-I have a vulnerary!"

Wil bowed his head. "This will need a professional. I am not capable of doing the job correctly."

"Then we'll bring her back to the village!" Florina insisted.

"Moving her will make the situation worse."

Florina stared at him, shaking her head.

"NO!" she said forcefully, surprising him. "No, you said you'd help! Now will you stick to those words? I can take her on my pegasus! You help me put her on Huey!"

Wil looked back at her for a moment, then the woman, then back at Florina. "Okay, I don't…know what else to do. You bring the horse around—stop him from moving so much—"

"_Pegasus_!" Florina snapped, as any pegasus knight unconsciously would. Turning back to the woman, she kissed the woman's bloody hand. "We're not going to let anything happen to you. Just hold on!"

With Wil's help, the two managed to get the woman slung over Huey.

"Be careful, Florina, don't let her slip to the sides!" Wil warned. "Or else…"

Florina nodded, frightful. "Th-Th-Thanks…thank you so much!"

Wil nodded, suddenly weary before her eyes. "We're not finished yet."

* * *

"She's broken her left shoulder," Alice, daughter of the village magistrate and the one who nursed the woman, said to Wil and Florina the next morning. She was a small woman, with startling lavender eyes and cutting-stone cheek bones fit for a noblewoman, encroached by a tangle of jet curls turning brown at the tips—_like blood-dried claws,_ Wil had thought when first he saw her.

It was a small room, and it barely fit four cots and enough legroom to move sideways between them. The only window opened to a cloudy, dry day full of biting wind and the apprehensive hush of upcoming battles. The woman was sleeping on one of the few cots, donned in the dress of the priestess. Her clothes were to be washed and mended, but she herself was clean, and in the dark chamber, her skin seemed to glow.

"A few weeks will do her enough good for minimal use of her left arm," Alice continued. "She is free of infection, as far as I can tell." She had a curious face now.

"What's wrong?" asked Wil.

"Well, she was exposed to many dead bodies while she was wounded…but she was lucky enough to escape disease… The Goddess looks quite favorably upon her. I was unsure if she would have survived last night. And she is so cold all the time… I do wonder, shouldn't she shiver?"

Florina tensed. She looked over her shoulder at the woman.

"Did she…say anything?" asked Wil.

"This was the way she's been since Florina brought her in," Alice admitted.

"What?" Florina squeaked.

"No, don't worry," Alice said, smiling uncertainly herself. "She will be fine, I am sure."

Wil cast a morose glance at the stranger he had gambled his life for. "Thank you."

The priestess shook her head. "This is what I live to do. Please, it is my pleasure."

* * *

_She still has not awoken,_ thought Wil as he fingered the broken bow three evenings later. A resigned sigh escaped his lips. He put down the hopeless case and stretched, kicked at the dirt under his feet and brushed away the dirt from the seat of his pants. His eyes rose skywards, where a rider-less Huey flexed his wings a final time for the day.

The signs of the battle were everywhere. The pitifully few men still hollering at the gate, some carrying lumber to those that were hammering, some accepting a much-needed drink from children armed with pails of fresh water and wooden cups. The air prickling with anxiety for the two casualties that had joined the woman in that small room. The constant mental head-counting mothers performed on their children—even the only dog and cat must have shared a furtive glance with each other.

And the bow at his feet.

"Wil." It was the magistrate, Jatis. He came to stand beside Wil, the vision of a sturdy oak tree in graceful robes. His presence seemed to exude endurance. It reminded Wil of his mother. His mother Anna was always the strong one of his parents, and she was the one who taught him to wield the bow and hunt. Though she herself was nothing special in archery and was soon bypassed by her son, her revolutionary bow-making techniques brought her a semi-famous status in Lycia. Wil often wondered if he would have starved if it wasn't for his skill of bow-making, though even he wouldn't be honored a comparison of his own bows with her expertly made.

"I am sorry that your bows had to come to this use," said Jatis.

Wil shook his head. "Please, sir, don't be. I'm glad I was able to help at all."

"We are blessed to have been sent a bow-maker and a warning this year. Were it not for you, that pegasus knight and the woman, I fear what would have become of us."

"I don't deserve much credit. The villagers were prepared."

Jatis nodded, watching Huey curl his wings for one final swoop before disappearing behind the dye-maker's house. "It is a sad day when a man is proud of it."

"How are they?"

Wil didn't like to remind the village magistrate about the last two nights, about the battle, about the two waves of bandits so certain they would catch the village by surprise. He didn't want to remind him of the casualties, that Jatis's own nephew had been one of the wounded, a horrifying gash just above the left knee. He didn't want to remind the magistrate of any of this…but yet he didn't dare let himself forget, didn't dare let his mind wander to the ruins. He burned with shame at what his mother and father would say if they knew that he was secretly glad this village was under attack, glad that there was something to fill his mind, even if with anxiety, dread, and fear. It was better than everything that was, he believed, and it nearly overwhelmed him to tears when first he'd acknowledged it.

"James and Theramin are fine. They both talk and laugh, but Theramin has been suffering a fever. Alice is worried it might be an infection. As for the woman, she has not so much as stirred. She just lies there like she's made of stone."

Wil's eyes traced the dog's footprints in the mud near the well.

"All we can do is pray," Jatis said to the sky.

Wil slid the world out of view with his eyelids, his heart panging at what his mother would have said to _that_. "Yes, sir." _But I'm tired of __**praying**__._

* * *

"What do you think, Huey?" asked Florina, tangling uncharacteristically fiercely with a knot in his mane the next morning. There was a rattle of wind at the door, but she was far too absorbed to be startled. _'It's either rain or wind around here. We're lucky for a snatch of sunshine at all around this place,'_ Jatis' nephew had said to her as warning when Florina had opted to stay in the nameless village until she could properly thank the woman. She wasn't yet going to start wondering about how she would support herself when she ran out of money. She wasn't going to reminisce the last few days either either.

She _was_, however, discussing the woman with her most trusted companion. She had imagined the woman's life already, just as she imagined the lives of people that passed by her uncle's window back in Edessa. (It was also something she did when she was alone, thinking about the braver trainees that she did not have the courage to meet with, lest they taunt her and her timid nature.) The girl with one arm was attacked by a ferocious bear (when in fact it was an illness). The boy who always came to the bakery across from her uncle's had thirteen siblings, three of whom were famed pegasus knights and the others helping with the family farm. Florina had enough time to imagine much more for the woman, who for the moment was dubbed Almany, after the beautiful captain of her eldest sister's unit.

In Florina's imaginings, the woman had wonderful but strict parents: her father a man with a chiseled face, deep lines across his temple, a slightly wheezy voice and a berating temper, who taught 'Almany' her style of fighting; her mother tall and thin, gentle but not lenient, the one who had raised 'Almany' to be to-the-point. 'Almany' was the eldest of three siblings, and she had grown brave and hardy through necessity and responsibility, protecting her nearly blind younger brother from the bullies of her hometown in the Lycian state of Ostia and encouraging and providing her weak sister with an example of strength and fortitude.

With the strength and fortitude that Florina never could have, the strength that she could have used to stay another minute beside the woman when the bandit was coming for her—instead of turning away, leaving the woman, fleeing to the refuge of the sky; the fortitude that she could have used back then to scream for him to stop, to stop, he was hurting them—_he was hurting them!_

"Florina!"

Florina froze. It was Wil.

Her eyes flickered towards the archer standing at the doorway of the stables. Little did he know, she had found it easy to be around him, even when alone. She hadn't frozen and lost her voice so often; she had felt…strange when she was near him. She had felt as if she knew him forever, despite only knowing him for three days. She knew he had a wonderful family, but his older sister died of pneumonia when she was three, before he was even born. Florina felt she knew the pain of losing siblings better than he, though she never lost any. She knew his favorite song, "Home is Never Too Far Away," and it wasn't long before she had decided it was one of hers too. She knew that he was secretly afraid of worms and that his friend Dan never did showed mercy on balmy summer Saturdays—it was always fishing with Dan. How much closer could Dan have been to Farina when it came to temperament?

_Safe. _That's how she had felt with Wil. It was an astonishing reality. Florina never felt safe around any man.

But she froze. Not because of her position—crouching on top of her pegasus, her hindquarters nosed high into the air ungracefully, her skirt was of virtually no use. (Fiora, who found no way to explain the practicality, hated those miniskirts—and Florina decided at that moment that she hated them too.) But no, that wasn't why.

She was afraid. She was afraid of what he thought of her. How could she show her face to him? Everything she did three days ago was wrong—when she hurtled into the village without checking, when she cowered while the woman fought to save _her_, when she froze at Wil's arrival—oh Goddess, she was going to _faint_ were it not for him!

So how could she show her face to him? How could she show her face to _anybody_?

But Wil had too much on his mind to seem like he noticed any of it. "It's the woman! She's awake!"

* * *

A blood-red grip.

With two fingers, he slid the dagger out of the corpse's heart, his own pounding in the presence of so many dead…and the dagger. He rose to his full height, inspecting the dagger.

A snaking silver blade shaped like a wisp of smoke, about the length of his forearm. An unknown alloy, so thin it was slightly flexible, built to lodge itself in flesh, to bend to stout armor and slide along the curve of the protective plates and into openings. Yet it was the design that visually married the hilt to the blade that struck his core. A plain rhombus inscribed onto a circular plate the size of a ring. It changed everything.

For a moment, he marveled at its being where it was. Left behind. And the pack he found buried beneath the bodies, the one containing sketchbook, left no doubt in his mind that Snake had been here. And yet, how could Snake, of all people, have been so careless? And with _this_ dagger? From what he knew of her, she would rather die.

Maybe she did.

A clatter of hooves interrupted his thoughts. An expert of secrecy and swift departure, Lloyd leaped onto his horse and escaped the ruins and the ghosts of the dead, the dagger weighing heavily in hand.

* * *

Lyn traced her fingers down the blade again, numb. It had become a habit for her now, letting her finger slide caressingly over the Mani Katti. Like she had to unconsciously remind herself that it was there. The steed Pray snorted beneath her, flicking his tail up at a fly. Beside Pray was a packhorse, but rather a new addition to the company. Just the night before, Sain was scouting and had come across an agitated horse wandering through the woods. He brought back the horse and it was decided that they would return the horse to this village, seeing as this was the closest, but…

"This is just like what happened to my tribe," she said.

The lifeless dolls, the hordes of flies and crows, the blood in pools…so familiar…

"Milady," Sain said, somber for the first time she'd known him. "Why does their marquess do nothing?"

"This is…strange…" said Kent, completely unaware of what the two were saying. He had dismounted from his destrier.

"What is?" asked Lyn, forgetting Sain instantly. "What are you doing?"

Kent trekked through the bodies, examining them carefully. "Arrows…yet no indication that bows were present…somebody might have gotten out of here alive… And there was a struggle _after _the massacre…the only explanation I can offer for the two different sets of corpses… Do you see that some are older than others?"

Sain and Lyn shared glances, unsure what to think.

"Does that mean the bandits are all dead?" asked Sain.

"I cannot say," said Kent, crouched on his toes to get a closer look at one of the corpses. "But I _can_ say no blade here matches these marks. I would not have noticed had it not been for the blood…"

Kent's blade squealed out of its sheathe, an extension with which he turned over bodies, searching. "Feathers," Kent said. "Hoof-prints. What is this?"

"Please, Kent, let us leave here," Lyn called, steering Pray away.

"It's a circlet!" Sain's exclamation punctuated Kent's footsteps. "Those bastards! What young maiden did they—"

"Sain," Lyn said, irritated. She turned on the saddle to call to her vassals, but her voice caught in her throat. It couldn't be—she was too far away, surely she was seeing things—

She leaped off of Pray, stumbled through the bodies towards a startled Kent. He handed her the circlet; green, blue, purple beads slipped through her fingers and hurtled to the corpses—

_Green, blue, purple, green, blue, purple. It stands for Mother Earth, Father Sky, and our Spirits, our never-ending Spirits. See? I…I made it for you, so you can remember me, and the Lorca. Green, blue, purple—_

Green, blue, purple, scattered among corpses.

"What is it?" asked Kent, concerned.

Lyn was barely able to choke it out. "Florina…"

* * *

"Milady, please wait!" came Kent's distant shout.

Lyn didn't hear him. All she heard was her thundering heart. There was another village nearby; she'd seen it on the map Kent had used to mark their progress to Caelin. It was northwest… Perhaps they knew…perhaps they could offer some place, some name, some way to find Florina… She wasn't anywhere in the ruins, so she must have been kidnapped! Lyn could think of no other alternative.

The clapping hooves of two destriers arose in the distance.

"Please, milady, you must not be so hasty!" Kent shouted to her.

Lyn ignored him. She kicked Pray into a gallop over the inclining road (if it could be called a road). Florina…where was she? What happened? She had to be all right, she had to!

Her hand clenched around the blue diamond-shaped stone of the circlet, the centerpiece that Lyn had complimented with the beads. She pushed the tiring horse onwards, over the rise and—how was this village intact if it was so close to the one in ruins?

"Lyndis! Wait!" came Sain's call.

Lyndis didn't.

But there it was, with wooden walls made of twenty-foot stakes. Lyn was galloping over the walls that separated plots of farming land now; she was so close. In a few minutes, she'd be at the gates.

"Please, milady, slow down!" called Kent again.

Behind her, the sun had finally begun to clamber over the horizon and touch upon the land, giving it a pinkish look. The sky had sparsely a cloud, and the birds had begun chirping, but the day was all stormy wind in her ears.

She was reigning in her horse and just dismounting, realizing the village had seen battle only days before, when the twenty-foot gates of the village opened outwards.

"We harbor no demons!" a man's voice shouted.

There was a scream. Then a woman was thrown out onto the gravel.

Lyn's stomach dropped. Viperidae.


	4. The Lone Rhombus

**Lifeblood**

**By TayteFFN**

**Part One: Pride and Dignity**

**Chapter Four: The Lone Rhombus  
**

**Early June**

* * *

"**We harbor no demons!" a man's voice shouted.**

**There was a scream, then a woman thrown out onto the gravel.**

**Lyn's stomach dropped. Viperidae.**

"_No!_"

Out came another woman, sobbing and gasping as she fell to her knees at the monster's side, skittering pebbles and loose rocks across the road, her hands hovering over the monster's body, afraid to touch it. "She—She's bleeding again!" The woman turned back to the man, pleading and sobbing, "Please—Please d-don't do this!"

"Father!" came another woman's voice. The owner of the voice was soon kneeling beside the sobbing woman, who cautiously helped to arrange an unwilling Peri onto her back.

"She is spawn of the devil, Alice! Can you not see it in her eyes!" shouted the man who had spoken earlier. Beside him stood the two middle-aged men that had thrown Peri out into the roads. "You who serve Elimine cannot argue this!"

Indeed, his daughter was garbed in the shapeless white robes of an Eliminian priestess. Yet his words of warning did nothing in the slightest to hinder the priestess's efforts to help the wounded woman. "Elimine helps all people, and if this woman is what I heard, then she cannot be any such thing!" replied the woman. "How could you _do _this to her? You turn away from her when she needs your aid the most, after what she has done! She has saved our village, Father! Jaiden, Reaver!" she addressed the men standing beside her father. "Pray tell me you agree!"

One of them shook his head. "Evil's evil, Alice. Don't make no difference what else she's gone an' done."

Lyn heard nothing, her eyes locked on the timid woman beside the priestess and Peri. Was that… Was that _Florina_? Was that truly…?

"I thank you for your hospitality, but it really _is_ time I left," said another man, suddenly squeezing past the three men crowding the half-opened gates. Clearly a traveler, a bow clung to his back, a packed tan steed at his heel. Following the steed was a pegasus, also ready for travel. He rushed to Peri and unstopped his hip flask and offered it to her, ushered her to drink, a feeble attempt to stop the coughing that had her doubled over on her knees. The woman squeaked, then settled to a whimper, helpless.

"Alice, get back in the village and don't you dare touch it!"

Kent and Sain arrived without anyone's notice as Alice shouted, "No, Father!"

"NOW! Or you too will be banned from this village!"

It came to Alice as a blow; she looked from Peri to Florina's pleading eyes, to the man with the bow, who turned his face away and must have muttered something like "Go," and to her father.

"Forgive me, Florina (Lyn's heart exploded),Wil," she whispered, shaking her head, tears of frustration trickling down one cheek. Suddenly like a weary old woman, she pushed herself to her knees, flinching at Peri's ceaseless coughs, closed her eyes, then with head bowed in shame, walked towards her father, still pleading forgiveness.

"Reaver, Jaiden, make certain that _thing_ never again steps into this village!" said the man, now purple in the face. An image flickered in Lyn's head, followed by a thought: _Humiliating her father like that… Father would never have me speak again, were I her…_ Reaver and Jaiden stepped out of the gates, dull wooden swords in their hands, though neither looked convinced that they would need them.

Florina sobbed as she turned back to Peri, her back still to Lyn. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! I-I can't do anything! I'm so sorry!"

Wil, as the man with the bow had been called, put a hand on Florina's shoulder, perhaps to comfort her, perhaps to comfort himself, as he too watched helplessly as Peri continued to cough, the flask lying worthless at his knees.

"You three!" One of the men stationed to watch Peri, either Jaiden or Reaver, spoke to Lyn. For a moment, he glanced at his partner, unsure what he should say. Then he settled for what he seemed to believe was unlikely: "You don't have anything to do with _it_, do you?"

Beside her, Kent opened his mouth, but whatever he had to say Lyn never found out, for she said, "Yes."

Kent looked at her through the corners of his eyes. Wil and Florina turned to see who had spoken.

"Lyn!" Florina cried, unbelieving. She struggled to her feet and pelted towards the Sacaen princess, stumbling once and halting at Lyn's foot. "Please! Please, Lyn, you have to help her! Please, she's going to die, Lyn!"

"Yes! Let's!" agreed Sain, dismounting as Kent was beside him.

Lyn looked at the monster, hesitant.

"Lyn, what are you waiting for?" asked Florina fearfully. "We don't know why she is coughing blood like this but… You—You can fix that! Can't you? Can't you? Like those medicines you gave me a year ago! Oh, she's losing so much blood again! Lyn, please, make it stop! _Plea-hease!_"

At last, Peri stopped coughing. She held her arms over her stomach, breathing hard, her face covered in sweat and forehead almost touching the ground. Lyn's brows were furrowed together.

"Florina…" Lyn looked down at the girl. "Why… Why do you want to save _her_?"

Florina and Sain both gawked at her, horrendously shocked; Kent too had a curious expression on his face, no longer trying to hide it as he watched his liege. Did she understand what she was saying? Did she understand that she was possibly condemning the woman to death?

"What? H-How could you say that…" Florina whispered. "Sh-She saved my life. She saved the village and… I… I have to help her now, Lyn. I have to… If I don't…I would have to live in shame, thinking forever, that woman s-saved me—twice!—and I…" She turned away from Lyn. "I cuh-can't help her… I cuh-can't do a-anything for her! I flew to Sacae looking for you, Lyn… I n-needed to know if you thought I could b-be s-strong, l-like yeh-you, if I c-could p-protect someone…someday…" Florina buried her face in her hands. "But I c-can't… I can't! All I _can_ do is b-beg, a-and p-p-plead, and c-cry a-and pra-ay…"

Wil grimly glanced at Florina, who promptly began to hiccup, and held his unstopped flask to Peri again.

"I'm fine!" Peri rasped, pushing it away from her face. She coughed again, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, steadied herself from falling over, then spoke again. "I'm fine…"

"And here are your Goddess-forsaken possessions!" said Alice's father at the gate again. He chucked a leather bag containing everything Alice had stripped Peri of before changing her, along with the daggers Wil had brought back with him. Wil rose to catch it, but it grazed his fingers and collided heavily with Peri's head. Florina cried out, forgetting Lyn completely and running back to her.

Peri made no noise whatsoever taking the blow, simply falling over to the ground like a statue that had been precariously balanced. The bag dropped at her side. One of her hands drifted up to the right corner of her brow, pressing it slightly. Florina, who was now beside her, poured some water from Wil's flask on one hand and washed her forehead gently.

"D-Don't say you're—_hic!_—fine!" Florina said. "Your fore—_hic!_—f-forehead is burning! P-Please… W-Wait…Why are you… She's not opening her eyes! Wil! Help! Wil! She's not…!"

* * *

The humid evening saw to the White Wolf's unceremoniously being (almost literally) kicked out of the village he had planned to rest and gather his thoughts at, but other than the grudging stab at his pride, he was managing. It was plain the village had been rend into two rather uneven sides—or at least the population at the local tavern was—when it came to Snake, something Lloyd found exceptionally interesting. That she made herself so conspicuous continued to pester him. He had no illusions that she didn't know he was coming; though he was unaware of the wind patterns that so conveniently allowed Snake to discern his scent, he knew full well she could not be caught unawares in a long-distance pursuit.

But should he have found the conspicuousness surprising?

That train of thought kept him busy. He was armed against the greedy darkness with a torch that was barely able to fend it off, much less the unwanted cloud of insects that whirled around the flickering fire, as if in some bizarre ritual. The crickets complained of the relentless heat that left Lloyd's forehead slick. The only sign of companionship came from the various sounds of his steed's footfalls as it picked after Lloyd through the rough road. Blaze's different scrapes, pauses and taps, Lloyd knew, were enough for Uhai to figure out what kind of earth the horse was on, how tired it was, and whether it was day or night—and who knew what else? It was just as unnatural as Snake's sense of smell.

"She never does anything without a reason," Uhai had said to him once. Lloyd had agreed. Now he realized he was asking the wrong question. Snake must have left the dagger for a reason. She must have known she couldn't continue running, so she left something that would confuse him and break the momentum of his resolve.

Suddenly feeling vulnerable on the road, Lloyd entered the woods, wishing he didn't need a torch to see. His ears almost stretched for any sound that might hint at Snake's presence under some tree or behind a log. In his mind's eye, she was poised with a throwing knife, eyes gleaming red and dangerous. Everything became a potential threat; the very shadows seemed to suck air away from his mouth. Once a rustling in the bushes had him drawing his sword, breathless and expecting a knife to fly at him.

The alertness faded with the monotony however. The stretched minutes passed into hours; the black night came to its height. No sharp objects pierced him except the recurring fear that one would. He had to relight his torch once—a terrible ordeal that had awakened him from sleep-deprived stupor. That stupor did not have another chance to return that night, for several minutes later, he happened upon a camp of six people at the edge of a fork on the road. He walked unquestioned past the redheaded sentry with only a word to Blaze—_Stay_—and headed straight for the only person of interest to him, the only one who seemed awake other than the sentry. He knew she had been standing under that tree, looking in his direction expectantly long before he turned the corner of the road. He knew from the astonished look on the sentry's face and lack of action to prevent Lloyd from getting to Snake was the result of a warning several minutes old. And he knew that, when he held out Legault's dagger to her and she took it with an almost imperceptible nod, his message was clear. _Truce._

Then he swiftly unrolled his bedroll right next to Snake's and fell asleep, as much to his own surprise as hers.

* * *

Snake absolutely could not believe her luck. She ran the series of events over in her mind again, trying to connect the pieces together.

After sending Florina to the village, she had unloaded her horse of the pack and sent it scampering southwards, away from the village, hoping the bandits would follow the fresh tracks.

Then she hid her pack under dead bodies, and proceeded in burying herself in them too, planning on being passed off as one of them. Of course, she made certain if her ruse failed, that getting out from under them and launching daggers was an easy task, as was running away.

Everything proceeded perfectly until Florina had returned with Wil, and Snake had ended up saving Florina again and lost control over her body after her left arm broke; she fainted over the body of the bandit responsible.

The three surviving bandits had left Florina and Wil intact out of sheer laziness.

Florina had flown her back to the village that was warned earlier, while Wil brought back only the daggers that she had thrown, unaware of the pack and forgetting the Lone Rhombus (though she failed to understand how that happened).

Two evenings later, Sain came upon Horse when he was scouting. He took Horse back to camp and, with Lyn and Kent, was quick to adopt Horse and turn her into a packhorse until he could return her to the owners that he assumed were at the village he didn't know was in ruins.

Lyn then came to the ruined village, somehow knew Florina had been there (these details were very hazy to Snake), and raced to the village Snake, Florina and Wil were at just in time to see…

Snake winced, skipping that part.

So, thanks to Sain, she had Horse back.

Thanks to Florina's pleas, Lyn had fixed Snake's cast with nothing more fatal than death-pronouncing glares.

Thanks to Sain again, Snake, Florina and Wil somehow winded up as part of what Wil excitedly called "Lyndis' Legions." (Snake decided not to believe the whole Caelin ordeal for the moment until she had heard for herself about it from someone other than one from "Lyndis' Legions.")

And somewhere, between all of that, _Lloyd_…

Snake couldn't believe it. His progress seriously alarmed her when she was unconscious those three days. His vengeance she had been intent on escaping—more for his sake than her own. She had almost expected to be at the end of his blade by now, and her blades would not have touched him, of course. She would never have harmed him, under any conditions. To think that _Lloyd _happened to find her pack and, more importantly, the Lone Rhombus… So it was actually a good—no, a _fantastic_ thing!—that Wil forgot the Lone Rhombus.

…But in the end, it was thanks to Legault that Lloyd now was sleeping soundly just a foot away from her, secure that she would not attack him in his sleep, while Kent at the other side of camp kept throwing baffled glances at Lloyd and Snake when he seemed to think she wasn't looking.

If it weren't for the pain it would have caused, Snake would have been laughing until her sides cracked open.

* * *

_He is a man of Bern,_ Lyn learned the next morning, simply from his way of introduction. The shaking of hands. The locking of eyes. The confident nod. He said his name was Lloyd. His broad shoulders assured of the capability of using such an enormous weapon—a sword—and his face as angled as a man's should be. A band decorated the top-left corner of his left ear; his hazel eyes were a tint of his hay-golden hair. He was tired yet able, and running uncomfortably short on food. His water was depleted, his clothes soiled, his horse slightly temperamental. Lyn was fine with that. All of it.

Until she learned he was an old acquaintance of Peri's, which was, in fact, the sole reason he happened across Lyndis' Legions.

Wil and Sain were quick to encourage him to join the merry little band of theirs. He had looked to Peri questioningly. She nodded. He nodded. That was that. And now, the two brought up the rear of Lyndis' Legions as it traversed the beaten road after Florina had completed a quick scout. Her "Legions" traveled as two loose lines of three on the wagon-wide road: Kent and Lyn led, followed by Sain and Wil, then Peri and Lloyd. Florina had taken her pegasus to the sky, sometimes trailing them, sometimes scouting ahead, sometimes letting the pegasus cruise freely, but always farther from everything in mind than body.

Lyn scraped her arm against low-hanging branches of a tree and hissed, turning her attention away from Peri and Lloyd and focusing on the road. Not a word passed between them as far as she knew.

Then again, perhaps they _had_ been speaking, but her perked ears couldn't pick out their words because the wind blew them away. If the wind was not at fault, then the raucous birds and the rasping insects were, for there was an uneasy silence behind her that made it impossible to pin the blame on the two men following. The only time Sain wasn't chattering away was when he was tired, and even then he was humming something to himself. Wil' excitement too had strangely dissolved, for it seemed he had _awoken_ withdrawn from his new acquaintances; the most interaction he had since he woke was a slightly hurt frown when he realized that Florina had rushed through her breakfast when she saw him awaken and took to the skies before he had come back from the stream Lyn had found.

Surely if those two were so silent, she could have heard Peri and Lloyd speak, even with the wind and the birds and the insects?

But then again, if _nothing_ passed between Peri and Lloyd, as Lyn was almost certain of, what did that mean? And why did he want to see Peri? And did he… know the truth?

The questions were pushed aside for the moment, however. Peri had swung Horse and her unsteady self (she would accept no help) to Kent's left and spoke.

"Sir Kent, if I recall correctly, you said last evening that we are traveling a different route back to Caelin than the one you and Sir Sain had used to leave it."

Kent nodded, carefully studying the woman out of the corner of his eye. "That would be correct, Miss Peri."

"I assume, then, that we shall enter Lycia through Araphen."

"That is my intention."

"I see." Peri's eyes shifted to the sky, as if gauging the sun as she continued. She winced as her mare faltered and said, "Do you plan to request aid from the marquess there?"

"Would that be possible?" Lyn asked, berating herself for not having thought of this herself. She certainly was not ignorant of Lycia anymore; the knights were doing all they could to make her aware of the geography, relations, dress, characteristics and behaviors of each canton to each other, along with legends and songs and what history the two were able to remember between them (Kent had found that subject dull, he had told her after clearing his throat). Lyn did her best to ask questions, roam into forgotten avenues and pockets that the knights had not yet thought to mention. That the information she learned might be of help before she had gotten to Caelin hadn't struck her.

"I pray so," said the knight. "Caelin and Araphen have enjoyed a wondrous peace the last eight decades or so."

"That would be wonderful!" said Lyn. She eagerly swallowed a gulp of air when Pray nudged his way into the unfiltered sunlight of the open. Both were glad to be out of the tunnel of trees, away from the harsh calling of so many new creatures.

"Assuming the request is granted," said Peri, taking away any positive energy Lyn had procured in the moment. She herself breathed deeply and shifted her weight, perhaps to lessen the panging of her shoulder. She spoke again. "What kind of a man is Lundgren? Have you ever chanced upon him personally?"

It was one of the first questions Lyn had asked him. Kent shook his head. "I'm afraid not, but his nature is not a difficult one to grasp if what I heard was more true than anything else. He had always excelled in his studies, far more than our marquess, but may the Goddess keep such a cold heart from a throne. He was always ambitious, and undoubtedly capable, but he was well aware of that and his pride made him too many enemies. All of Lycia would be disturbed were he to achieve his goal, especially with the unrest in our as of yet neutral nearby canton Laus as it is."

"And what of Tuscana, Khathelet and Tania? How are they in terms of Caelin?"

"You are familiar with Lycia?"

"I lived near Tuscana."

Kent nodded. "Tuscana is not quite concerned with us beyond necessities, though the lady marquess occasionally attempts to start friendships with various cantons… None of the cantons know what Tuscana is truly interested in… Khathelet is among our allies; however, last we heard, there was some unrest that Tania had been appealing our attention for something to do with merchants, I believe…"

"I see… And, have you any idea as to how the cantons will react to Lyn?"

Kent spared a glance for Lyn, who nodded, unperturbed. He said gravely, "Everyone has prejudices, for certain."

It was the biggest weight on her shoulders. Lyn knew there would be friction about her heritage. It was one of the first things her father had taught her when first he took her to Bulgar, when she was eight: the pale-skinned did not like the nomadic people of Sacae. To most of Lycia, she would seem a barbarian woman, a mongrel, unfit to rule anything; everything about her would count against her—her accent, her lack of knowledge of her own people (though even she did not think of them as so), her very blood—what they must assume was a frivolous, traitorous, crazy mother and a savage, animal father. The people would be outraged were she named heir—but she didn't care for that title. She only planned to stay in Caelin for her grandfather, with her grandfather, so she was doing everything she could to reduce the friction.

But how could she stand up against a people? How could she hold herself up when she became _surrounded_?

"How many of them are already aware of Lyn's existence?" asked Peri.

Sain, who had been speaking with Lloyd for a moment when Peri had vacated her position, had cantered his horse closer to Peri, Kent and Lyn to listen to what was said. He answered her question with a hollow laugh. "All of them, by now! But, of course, the work of spies, against Lundgren's wishes."

Lyn twisted herself on her saddle-less horse to see a bitter expression on Sain's face. Behind him, a troubled expression dominated Wil's face. _Of course he had no idea what he is getting into,_ Lyn thought sadly. The monster nodded at Sain's comment, from across Kent her eyes locking with Lyn's to consider her for the first time. Lyn didn't drop her eyes away this time.

"You're going to need a lot of help," Peri said to her, addressing her for the first time.

Lyn didn't answer, not trusting her voice. Her tongue felt like a bar of cracking-dry dirt in her mouth.

"Let me introduce myself properly," Peri said. "My name is Viperidae. I am the wanderer I've been since I was a child; to me, home is everywhere but the desert. At the moment, I am an unreliable fighter in battle at best—_however_," she tacked the word on with some resentment. "However, I am a better tactician than I ever was a fighter. I have considerable experience in commanding battle, but am currently unemployed… So…"

Her voice trailed off as the travelers ascended a steep incline, the wind sniffing at their ankles and kicking up as much dust as the horses did. Little did the others know, her destination bowed in the near distance, the abrupt end of the cascading slope that followed the incline. Great trees came to usher them down with gravity. The air crackled with tension; even Sain was cowed from jumping at the unsaid proposition—cowed by the thoughts of his liege's reaction.

"So you are formally offering your services?" Kent finished the hanging silence.

"Temporarily."

Lyn pressed her face into the wind, hoping to find some guidance in it, perhaps her father's voice. She knew Kent and Sain were watching her cautiously and felt herself grow hot with shame that they would be so careful not to displease her—surely they knew her better than this? Did they think she would lash at them if they displeased her? They had to understand that she valued their honest opinion, especially if it differed from hers…and even more so if it agreed with Peri's.

Yet Kent was slow to speak his mind. "I do not believe we can afford to pass this chance. Milady?"

"Don't give me an answer yet," Peri intervened. "I won't accept it until tomorrow morning; tonight, you will test me."

Kent frowned. Before he could say anything, she said, "I suggest we stop here for today."

Sain voiced everyone's thoughts aloud: "What?"

They looked at what Peri had indicated with a jerk of her head: a crumbling brown structure (not even the size of the _stables _of Castle Caelin, Sain was quick to notice). It stood in the center of an expansive field off the beaten road. The eastern entrance lacking a door was bad; the collapsed roof just spelled doom.

"Surely you jest?" Sain said, sounding certain he would hear confirmation in her reply but was met with no such thing. "But the sun does not yet run high! And _this_ mildewy old… thing?"

"It is the best you will be able to find for tonight," said Snake. "You don't seem familiar with this road. From here, the best shelter one could find would be the forest for about a little more than a day's ride. Unfortunately, we will need a stronghold much sooner."

Lyn halted Pray at Peri's words and turned back to her. "What do you mean?"

Peri answered simply. "We're being followed."

* * *

The scalding sun shone through a slat of window, falling on a badly bruised shoulder. Black robes were placed over them, but not only to hide what Lyn had already seen in store for the priestess of the nameless village. Gingerly, Alice kneeled before her bed, her prayers and mourning directed not to the heavens from which, Etruria's patriarch claimed, Elimine watched over and guided the mortals still landlocked. Her prayers went instead to something for which Jatis would beat her harder—and perhaps even kill her for—a figurine of the trickster god, Set, that she had been given by a passing Ilian traveler.

The bandits had returned, but Alice did not pray for her fellow villagers. They would be fine.

_Another battle has been avoided…  
_

A tear slid down her cheek.

…_because the mounted travelers that just passed by yesterday morning has what we do not—"plenty to spare."_

* * *

_****__Gunlord500 and Tom-Ato13, thanks so much for the support :)_


	5. Fragile

**Thanks for the support thus far :) It greatly encourages me to keep writing.  
**

**Chapter Five: The Plan**

* * *

"**You don't seem familiar with this road," said Snake. "From here, the best shelter one could find would be the forest for about a little more than a day's ride. Unfortunately, we will need a stronghold much sooner."**

**Lyn halted Pray at Peri's words and turned back to her. "What do you mean?"**

**Peri answered simply. "We're being followed."**

* * *

"This…is…" Sain shook his head. Now that he had dismounted at the building, he was even more reluctant to set foot in it than ever. It was bigger than he thought, (though still not big as the stables of Caelin Castle) but its ten-foot walls were not reassuring. The gaping, gate-less front entrance was an affront to all strongholds in existence. And it smelled strange.

"That's enough complaining," Snake said sternly. "Lyn, I am taking lead."

The plainswoman dismounted without indication that she heard. Kent and Sain shared uneasy glances behind her back when Snake went on.

"First of all, there is someone inside."

Looks of alarm passed on a couple of faces; the rest seemed waiting to be convinced to trust Snake. Snake ignored this, knowing full well the Legions would know soon enough. "Lyn, please meet with him or her. Take Sir Kent with you. Sir Kent, I would like you to inspect the fortress after you meet with whoever is inside." After Snake saw to Kent's appeasement, she addressed the others: "I would like the rest of you to care for camp necessities _inside_. We will meet there in an hour for luncheon, to discuss tonight's battle."

Lyn pulled Pray to the former fortress. Kent followed. Snake observed a moment of uncertainty between the rest of the Legions as they watched the two disappear into the cavernous mouth of the fortress. And another moment. And then a stretching moment more.

Most likely, it was expected that Lyn and Kent would have been leading the Legions. This turn of events must have been disorienting for Sain. Wil seemed like he might wait for the last of the original Legions members, Sain, to give orders. Lloyd could have taken the responsibility, but he was the newest member of the Legions and seemed unsure as to how the others would react to _his_ giving orders, so he was using a different approach instead:

"Wil, maybe we should go get firewood for lunch."

"Sounds good!"

The hierarchy of the camp could wait for later, Snake decided. In fact, she didn't want to do anything about it. It would be better if everyone eased into his or her own place without her opinion; the camp would feel more independent in so doing. And there was no need in her ordering for _everything_ to be done in some precise way. Not only would that have been tiring and unnecessary, the others would begin to expect and _rely_ on her for things they could attend to on their own.

She turned her eyes up to the sky, searching for the shy pegasus rider. Florina had chosen a good time to bank down to the earth. The small gust Huey landed with embraced Snake and made her shiver. She needed blood. She needed it soon.

"Florina!"

She turned with a start, still perched on Huey, a hand gently working out tangles in his mane.

Snake hesitated a moment. What could she say to this girl to keep her from getting upset? She didn't like it, but Florina's childish features and shy persona almost pulled affection out of her heart. The Ilian's innocence seemed to have swept away the lack of trust Snake had in strangers and acquaintances. Surely her return with Wil, to save Snake, had been a loyal gesture? And among strangers. …A sign of greater loyalty yet to come?

The bacchri hastily cast these thoughts away. Trust wasn't just innocence and goodwill. That she had learned, and learned well. How could she be considering such stupid thoughts?

"Florina," she said, if only to stop thinking, "we will be staying here for the rest of the day."

Florina blinked once, twice, glanced at the dilapidated fortress, then nodded. No questioning in her expression, no dissatisfaction with the fortress' state.

"We will—" Now Snake had to think quickly to find the correct words. "Florina, we… There is something you must know… It's… Did you happen to look behind us? But you wouldn't have seen them anyway—that is—!"

The Ilian looked at her with concern. Snake had grown crimson at her own uncharacteristic rambling. She was accustomed to bluntly speaking her mind, and a leadership position had granted her the right to do so. She'd never needed to coat her words before, and never attempted to, thus her abysmal failure. With a hard look to hide away her confusion, the she strategist said, "We are being followed by people with unkind intentions at the moment."

Florina looked surprised. "Oh."

…_Oh?_

"That's what they were," she said. "There were a dozen, I saw them, coming from the direction of the villages.

And suddenly, Florina's eyes were panic-ridden. "The village—"

"No." Snake put her hands on the girl's shoulders, noting the way the girl flinched under her fingers. "Listen to me, Florina. Do not think about that right now. First, we have to get out of this alive, and then I promise, I will let you fly back to find out if they are well, understand?"

Huey nickered uneasily as he turned his head, whose breaths were coming shallow and fast. Snake let go of her as if her skin burned to the touch.

"No—Florina—don't fly now—"

A slap of feathers pushed her aside, and next she knew, the pegasus rider was airborne beyond a shout's distance. For a moment, the bacchri lay parked on her hindquarters, stunned. A bitter smile overtook her face equally fast as she thought, _Looks like I've been fortunate in my subordinates until now, in every way one could be. _She pushed herself up._ It seems…the bandits are but a nuisance compared to what I have here. That is to say, when it comes to battle, in skill and temper, I can trust no one but Lloyd in this ragtag bunch...and maybe Kent. This will be slightly more difficult than I thought._

She had heard Lloyd and Wil agree to get firewood after taking in the horses, so there was no trace of anyone in front of the fortress—except for Sain's head poking out of the entrance.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Lyn glared at her from across the inner room of the fortress. Lyn had settled herself at sharpening all the swords and lances available to prepare for the battle, the lances following lined behind her. A slant of light had infiltrated the broken ceiling and cast her in an exposing light, her intentions and emotions displayed like an ornamental sword along the walls of her Lycian kin. Natalie, a woman the Legion had found seeking refuge in the building, had been apologizing for being trouble for the first half hour of their stay. To quiet her, Snake had swiftly put the woman to mending Snake's clean but torn clothes, for Snake still wore what Alice had given her. "Be quick; I'm going to need them before the night is done," she had said ominously. Now she extended her arms to the light, working thread and needle to Snake's torn clothing. The priestess' clothing clinched irritably and restrictively at the bacchri's shoulders, but that was a problem soon to be solved.

_Eyes closer,_ Snake mused, delivering a swift black stroke to her sketch of the angered woman. _And I cannot ensure loyalty to myself unless I ensure loyalty to her…_

"I asked what it is you are doing!"

"You're suddenly rather demanding," Snake responded at last, running a smudging ring finger over the brows of the portrait. "So quickly, now, Lyn? You know your red-haired knight spoils you with his manners."

Lyn's face reddened. "_Don't_ bring him into this!"

There was a pause on Snake's behalf as she berated herself silently. "My apologies. It was a pointless, tactless, detrimental maneuver."

Lyn looked with incredulity at the bacchri. "That's all it was?" she said with half a laugh. She waited, disbelieving, and was finally rewarded with an answer to her query:

"I'm sketching."

Lyn waited for more, but after two minutes, she said, "That's it? You're sketching? We're going to battle tonight, and you're _sketching_?"

"It's when I can analyze best."

"Excuse me?"

"Please don't make me exp—never mind." Snake reminded herself that snide comments were not at all in her interest…for the most part.

"And what, pray tell, have you deduced from your analysis?"

Snake looked past the parchment to look Lyn in the eye. "That unless you are willing to work with me, I'm afraid your Legions are going to get mowed down tonight. I don't believe that is within either of our interests."

"And what is this I'm doing?" Lyn indicated the sword she was sharpening.

Snake sighed. "Lyn…what can I do to make you stop glaring at me like that, first of all? In case you haven't noticed, everyone _else_ has." She turned back to her sketch, her right hand a whir across the page as she drew in the hair. "Which is…in this case, perhaps the worst thing you could possibly be doing. You…don't fully understand your own position, Lyn."

Footsteps. Kent had returned from investigating the fortress.

"Sir Kent," Snake said before he could speak, "if you would please see to it there aren't any ears listening to this other than those inside this room, and yourself, if you care to hear."

The red-clad knight obediently checked the halls and stood guard.

"What I say now," Snake said, turning back to her sketch, "I will not repeat, and you will not repeat, if you know what is good for you."

"Lyn, as I see it, this is how things stand for you: You are heading to Caelin to kill two birds with one stone—to see your grandfather, and to end the threat your grand-uncle poses to your life, and your grandfather's life. You have two knights who are beyond a doubt loyal to you. I don't know what exactly your grandfather believed two knights could accomplish, and am left to assume he didn't have much choice, but two knights is what you have, Lyn, and it is not enough. Don't make the mistake of thinking I don't trust their strength or valor, or some such things. That's hardly the point.

"The reality is, Lyn, that any evidence you have to prove yourself heir to Caelin's throne is very. Very. Fragile. Sir Kent must have documents with your grandfather's signature, to confirm to the other Marquesses of the Lycian League of your gentility. But documents can be burned. Without the documents, you have no chance at the throne—if not by Caelin's law itself, if not by the disapproval of the Lycian League, then by the very people of Caelin. But if you were to arrive at Caelin's doorstep with only the documents and your own life, I'm afraid that won't be acceptable either. Sir Kent, please hear this carefully as well.

"If Sir Kent and Sain were to both lose their lives protecting you, Lyn, there will also be no chance of accomplishing your goals. They are half the credibility you have. You can't walk into the Caelin castle without document nor your knights—they are useless, one without the other. That explained, I hope you command them both to understand that under no circumstance are they allowed to put themselves in more danger than necessary. Thus far, am I understood?"

Lyn held the iron sword to the whetting stone, her eyes distant.

"Are you listening, Lyn?" Snake asked, irritated. She disliked explaining herself, but even more she hated to repeat herself.

"Yes," Lyn whispered.

"And have I made myself clear thus far?"

"_Yes,_" Lyn said through gritted teeth.

"Good. Now realize how much more complicated the situation is. Due to strange conditions, four people have joined you. One is your old friend; one is your old friend's friend. Then there is me, and Lloyd, my acquaintance. And somehow, we've been pulled to band together as '_Lyndis' Legions_.' I'll be frank, however. '_Lyndis' Legions_' might well be the most abysmal group I'll ever lead. I don't question Florina's loyalty to you, but she is inexperienced and unpredictable—almost completely unreliable. As for Wil, I cannot determine his motives for joining, and can determine nothing about how he would fare in battle. He and Florina are untested, you could say.

"As for me, I am not foolish enough to engage in battle in this condition, and, as I said, the services I offer are temporary and not of that nature, in any case. After tonight's battle, I won't guarantee myself to you. Lloyd is an excellent swordsman, though he is not formally trained; he too is a capable leader. However, I have serious doubts as to whether he has any interest whatsoever in your plight at the moment. He comes and goes with me. And so, of the four that have joined, possibly three of them do not have incentives of traveling with you, and might even decide it is actually in their interest to _avoid_ you altogether after tonight. We could be assets, Lyn. And we could be threats. And still, we could just walk out of your life and live our own, without another mention of your name. But if we were to leave, believe me when I say of everyone, _you_ are the one who suffers the most."

Lyn dropped the sword and the stone as she stood up. "What do you want me to do, beg you to stay with me? And the others?"

For a moment, Snake was dumbfounded. A tumbling frustration was beginning to consume her for a moment as she ran various outraged comments through her head. _Ah, but telling her it's a good thing she isn't in charge of __**anything**__ wouldn't be a good idea. _"I do not tell you todo_ anything_, milady. I am simply a tactician explaining a situation and pointing out all options that could make it easier—or you may look beyond that and find I am merely a person doing _everything_ in her power to make sure she and her acquaintances survive the night.

"So let us talk about tonight. About the situation of your _Legions_. There is nothing worse than a leader that does not serve the interests of the people."

Kent interrupted. "Miss Peri, I'm afraid I cannot let this continue. It seems you speak attack after attack—"

"I speak the truth—"

"—these unfortunate circumstances are not milady's doing—"

"That's true, they are not."

The agreement did nothing to quell the tension in the air.

Snake continued. "But from now, her actions will be responsible for a large part of it. I understand it is _my _presence that brings these reactions about, but at the moment, what _she_ needs to understand is that she does not have the option of behaving like a stubborn child. The Legions, tonight, is going to try to survive a battle when half the members are untested and all unfamiliar with each other. There is no bond of trust, no connection between most of us; there is no reason, for some of us, to hope to survive. Somehow blind to this, Lyn, you seem to have focused your attentions so that every move of yours has been detrimental to my efforts. You don't seem ready to fully commit yourself to the Legions. You, the supposed leader! You've already undermined most of the trust I had banked on from the rest of the Legions. If you do not have intentions of aiding us with everything you can offer, then I'm afraid we have no need of you. My every instinct screams at me to put someone as unreliable as you in this room than let you partake in the battle.

"That said, if you decide to partake in the battle, then I request your support from the moment the rest of the Legions returns. The morale of this group is absolutely deplorable." With an arm against the wall, the chalk drawing marks as she struggled to rise to her feet again, Snake continued. "We have to be their symbol of hope and strength. If you cannot play that role, I'm afraid Lyndis' Legions does not exist. We're all fragments of something we need to be _tonight_. If we cannot pull ourselves together by then...I'm sure I do not need to explain what would happen _then_. Natalie, how are my clothes coming?"

* * *

She was close to her limit now. Dizziness was not far away. Getting her feet to walk straight was difficult enough—but she led battles in worse condition. And she lasted almost a week before losing consciousness in Sacae. True, she lost a considerable amount of blood four days ago, but she had found long ago that the loss of her own blood did not affect her unique thirst positively or negatively. And she could not show weakness now, not when she had just taken the helm of the little band.

"What's the plan?" Lloyd, holding a mass of branches and twigs he had strapped tight with his belt, approached Snake where she stood upon the portcullis.

"The plan." She scoffed. "I think you are already familiar with it. Remember the Haunting?"

Lloyd raised his brows. "The Haunting...Linus told me about it. Where are you going to get all the wire?"

"The portcullis. It still has ropes. Decaying ropes, thinning out, all for the best. It will be very crude."

He had been holding a flask with his free hand since he could not latch it onto his belt and he held it out to her.

"What is this?"

"The beginning of our plan. Cheers."

She unstoppered it. _Garlic, olive oil... _ She bucked her head away. _Cayenne pepper, onions, and..._ Her eyes widened. The flask was heavy in her hand, like a big, dead fish, malodorous and, suddenly it seemed, impossibly long. It's mouth yawned open and a viscous oil clung for ages at the rims until the hand of gravity reached up and dragged it down.

"A present from Sonia." Lloyd smirked.

She already knew the taste, knew the feel, the panic-inducing slowness of the liquid in her throat, not pouring down but slowly, slowly, slowly crawling down like a great slug, a plug in her esophagus that howled at her body not to breathe while her lungs shriveled inside her rib cage like prunes.

Yet at the same time she had not been able to convince herself to eat it the first time either. The taste was not washable. It coated every square centimeter in her mouth, every pore and bud. It lingered in the ridges of her teeth when she used them to scrape off her tongue, built up between the gum and the corners of her fangs.

"What? Do you think she poisoned it?" Lloyd said.

There were all sorts of particles in there, a potpourri of minced garlic and chopped onions and the flaky cayenne pepper burned at the part of her neck that she could feel moving when she talked, irritated there enough to make her want to cough but soothed again by the olive oil, becoming a perpetual itch. "Why wouldn't she?" Her voice was far away even to herself. "Isn't this why she sent you?" What was the addition of poison to this overpowering collection of anticoagulants? A bitter taste fighting for an eighth of her perception? A scent itself consumed by the others?

"It is a death sentence for one of us," said Lloyd. "Let us find out which."

"No."

Lloyd blinked.

"I am here now..." the smell was intoxicating, nauseating, whose blood was that? "to get away from Sonia." She covered her mouth, pinched her nose.

Lloyd took a step back, seeing her eyes roll upwards.

"You think you can bring her to me?" She could feel her fangs grow outwards at the smell. If any of the others saw her now...she couldn't talk. Her mouth could no longer close properly, her jaw had already unhinged, her lips taut over the curvature of her canines.

"Ge' 'way," she breathed, unable to line her mouth up for d's or t's, anything that needed teeth. "Leave me alone." She could smell him bleeding. Why was he bleeding?

"Viperidae?"

Lloyd was looking over her shoulder in shock.

Snake froze. _Careless! _The archer boy had been collecting firewood as well—how could they forget? She could not look behind her, not with her head misshaped as it was, so she looked at Lloyd. She could say nothing. She could do nothing. Whatever was to happen, it was Lloyd's play. There was a cold seeping into her shoes. Lloyd was smiling slightly as he looked past her shoulder and, the flask in his hands again, he came out of sight, leaving her to stare at the ragged trees, at the stopper in her hand.

"You have a very unwilling patient, Wil," she heard Lloyd say. As water in a marsh slips in, the coldness started at her toes, or at the soles of her feet, or maybe at her ankles, or somewhere, and it arced up to her stomach, her shoulders, her neck, and left goosebumps riding up her skin. "She has a heart condition for which she needs to consume this..." Lloyd couldn't find a word for it, but Wil filled it in with his own "Oh that's awful whatisthat."

Laughing behind her as the jaw hinge collapsed back into place.

"No, really, that's terrible. Ah...really, Mister Lloyd, I don't blame her."

The fangs receding back in.

"Her heart fails to pump the blood through her body fast enough," Lloyd went on, "which is why she loses so much coordination, can't keep steady right now, see?" He was nodding when she turned, glanced at her as he spoke to Wil with a hand on his shoulder, "You know, I think she will listen to you, since she owes you, after all. Believe me, this concoction takes immediate effect, so don't be alarmed by the transformation. How about you help her with this" he pushed the flask into Wil's hand "—she won't want to take it herself—and I'll take the firewood back. Hey, thanks, and don't let her skimp even a little bit, okay?"

He didn't look at her as he picked up Wil's stack of firewood with his free hand. "Be a good girl, Peri!"

_That...bastard!_

Wil watched the man disappear from sight and looked with distaste at the flask in his hand, at Peri with her nose pinched. "Okay," he announced. "Time for your medicine."

* * *

"What do we even know?" Sain whispered to the red-haired knight as they crossed the portcullis they did not realize they would soon be defending. He held out his own sword, newly sharpened, against the light. "We have no numbers," he said, checking the sword for inconsistencies, "we don't even know what we are fighting. How are we going to fight in the dark? Any light we have will be our own, and then we will be unable to see in the dark."

"Stop waving that sword around so carelessly," Kent muttered. ("Yes, yes,_ Mother_.") He fingered the hilt of his own newly-sharpened sword. "How did _she_ know?"

Sain slashed at the air and lodged his sword into the bridge they walked along. "Damn...Hartmut!" he said, trying to yank the sword back out.

Kent watched his friend, utterly unimpressed. When at last the sword came free, Sain asked, "And who said they would attack at night? Ah, Lloyd! Time for luncheon already!"

Lloyd passed by with only a nod. When he thought he was safe enough, Sain looked at Kent. "Do you think he heard...?"

* * *

"Milady?"

Lyn spread more oil on the whetstone as she said, "Yes, Natalie? You must be hungry now. We haven't much, and I'm afraid we cannot send anyone far into the woods to hunt right now, but I shall prepare something for us after this last lance."

"Oh, no, I do not eat much, truly...but...I can fire a bow."

Lyn started. "You used to hunt?"

Natalie shook her head. "No, this leg...was always my condition. Dorcas, my husband, taught me how. I just need my arms, he said, and my head, so he taught me."

Lyn looked away. "Firing at people...it is something else... Thank you for the offer, Natalie, but you shouldn't have to do this..."

"Please, let me aid you in some way. I am rarely able to offer it..."

Lyn looked at the woman. "Then I will not be the one to stop you but...I will see to it you are as safe as possible first."

"Lady Lyndis?"

It was the Bernese man. "Please," Lyn said, rising, "I only accept that name from the knights because they refuse to stop calling me that. Call me Lyn. That is what I prefer, truly." No point in making unnecessary enemies.

"Very well. This fortress is equipped with a dysfunctional portcullis, according to S—Viperidae."

She saw it—there was no way he could honestly believe she didn't see him catch himself there, and he...honestly didn't seem to care. So she wasn't a threat to him?

"We are going to need to extract as much of the rope out of there as possible," he finished.

Lyn nodded. Then blushed._ A portcullis?_

"What are we going to do with a load of _rope_?" Sain had unknowingly come to Lyn's rescue.

"And before we get to that," said Kent, "the portcullis is somewhat like what the Ilians say is 'the tip of the iceberg.' The mechanism for raising and dropping it is in the guard room built above. I did see it is jammed up there for some reason, but you have to consider nonetheless that the weight of the whole gate is still hanging on the rope you want to take out."

"How heavy are we saying?" asked Lyn.

"The portcullis we have here is quite small," said Sain, his eyes unfocused as if he was trying to discreetly look over his left shoulder. "If it was ten feet by ten feet, with six inch intervals and an inch thick—which is far too little, that should be twenty bars horizontal and twenty-one vertical—"

"Sain is...more of the engineer than I am," said Kent.

Lyn started. She had never seen Kent grinning before.

"—with the density of iron being what it is, we would then have over thirteen thousand pounds —"

"Why only twenty horizontal bars?" she asked.

"—but alas, that is sure to be incorrect, for the thickness was not even a semblance of what it is!—"

"The bar that would have been furthest down is rather a line of spikes," Kent replied.

"—in which case I feel safe in doubling, more than doubling—"

Lloyd crossed his arms. "You Lycians still use that outdated measurement system?"

"—which means what we have here weighs roughly the equivalent of twenty-five women."

Lyn looked at Lloyd, Lloyd looked Kent. Kent took off his gauntlet.

"Excuse me," said Lloyd, holding out a hand. Kent shrugged and handed it to him.

"Ouch!" Sain rubbed the pink spot where gauntlet met forehead, quickly trying to hide a drop of blood. "Who's going to hit me next, Florina?" He frowned at Lyn laughing into her hand.

"That will be the day," Lyn said.

Lloyd handed the gauntlet back to Kent. "That was fun."

"It will get old very quickly," Kent warned.

"Then you can delegate him to me." Lloyd wrapped an arm around Sain's neck and, being the shorter man, ended up pulling him down as he said with a grin, "Hartmut was the stern one of the Heroes, remember Sain? Here comes Daddy."

"Lloyd."

He felt the smile drop off his face as he released Sain and turned to face Wil.

"The draught you made me feed Peri." Wil clenched his empty fist, eyes wide and seeing right through the man. "The draught you made me feed Peri! _What was it?_"


	6. The Plan

**Because Gunlord500 gets back to this story within 12 hours of publishing a chapter _ This guy...XD  
**

* * *

**Chapter 6: The Plan  
**

**Wil clenched his empty fist, eyes wide and seeing right through the man. "The draught you made me feed Peri! **_**What was it?**_**" **

"I told you exactly what it was," Lloyd said. Lyn stiffened behind him. "Medicine."

"Then why is she coughing up blood the way she is? And why was she crying?"

"You just left her there?" Kent frowned.

"She _told_ me to leave her," said Wil, "told me to run back as quickly as I could."

"I would have said she is coughing up blood because of the recent trauma to her body but...it could also be because she drank it too quickly," Lloyd answered.

"_What?_"

Lloyd looked at Lyn. "The medicine," he clarified. "We need her to recover quickly if she is going to lead the oncoming battle, so she received a double dose today."

"Medicine doesn't work like that!" Lyn frowned.

"Wait—Kent—" Lloyd reached out to catch him by the arm, but the knight had already strode past him, saying "Is there nobody here that is competent?"

Wil jumped out of his way, protesting "But she said to—!"

"Kent! Stop."

The knight froze in his tracks. _But he is not going to stay, _Lyn realized, the pit of her stomach growing cold. _He is leaving me too..._

"Kent, stay here."

This time, Kent looked over his shoulder, wide-eyed.

"I'll go," Sain continued, and with hand on the hilt of his sword he walked past the lady his liege and his own boon companion, stopping only to tell Kent "She needs you" before he outright broke into a run.

* * *

_He isn't exactly incorrect,_ Snake thought. Try as she might she could not re-hinge her jaw with the smell of blood on her own breath...nor could she track the forty or so bandits that had been making steady progress in their direction. She was beginning to understand the limitations humans faced with being able only to smell their immediate vicinity. _A heart condition...he doesn't understand how close he was to the truth! _And she promptly overhauled even more of the blood she had just consumed, right into the bushes. _Damned garlic...that never worked well with my system... _She clutched the tree to keep herself steady, the flask Wil had dutifully fed her lost somewhere in the thicket. She couldn't remember where. She wiped her eyes, waiting for a time for her stomach to settle so she could begin the search.

Wait, this was ridiculous—she had a battle to prepare for!

Crackling leaves. The Lone Rhombus sailed out from her uninjured arm and drove into the base of the tree. Missed. A gray blur disappeared into quivering shrubbery. No, of course the bandits could not have arrived so quickly. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Wow, glad that wasn't me."

Snake reached for another throwing knife and hissed at the bloom of pain that erupted, her eyes constant on Sain and her feet stumbling behind her to increase as much distance between herself and the knight. How did she not notice him coming from a mile away? The damn flask!

He stooped at the tree to pull out the dagger and stepped after her, his sword unsheathed, eyes bouncing from the knife in her hand to the fangs that curled out of her misshapen mouth.

"Go. Go!" Snake waved the dagger at him to get away, for there was nothing else she could physically say. Why did he keep proceeding?

"So this is what Lyn had been talking about," said Sain.

Snake shook her head to stop his advance, tucking in the knife, ready to launch. She was going to have to kill him. What was that salty taste in her mouth?

Tears. This wasn't supposed to be the way it ends. Sain was supposed to have stayed put in the fortress and she was supposed to return when she could finally control her own impulses—she barely managed to let Wil away alive! It wasn't even a Black Fang blade she would succumb to. She was going to die even before Sonia's poison could kill her! Was Kent or Lyn going to come now? Would, at last, when they found her leaning over the green knight's corpse, would one of those two be her executioner? Or would she meet an even more pathetic end at the hands of the ineffectual goons that were on their trail? Or would Lloyd return to finish the job?

Her back hit another tree trunk and she tripped over its roots trying to get around it, turned her eyes down for a second to regain her footing and suddenly Sain was there, extending an arm out to her.

"We need you to survive the night," he was saying. "Come back and help us fight," he was saying. "Come back with me. Let me help you," he was saying. His sword was sheathed and there was blood on his fingertips. His blood, she knew, because she hadn't smelled it before. She needed that.

He hadn't been expecting it, the speed with which she had risen up and taken his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. He had to put a hand upon the tree behind her for counter-balance—she was so small.

She licked her lips when she pulled away. There were cracking noises, like the sound made when someone cracked their back, and Sain winced the first two times and then drew closer when he realized her fangs were gone.

"You're so _stupid_," she said at last, straining. "Do you not realize how much I want to kill you right now?"

"But you won't, because _you_ are falling in love with me," Sain said with a sly smile.

Snake shook her head somberly, remembering the time she, Linus and Legault had ended up having to humor Nino with a funeral for her puppy. "No, really, Sain..." She wiped another worm of blood from his forehead. "Your stupidity truly knows no bounds." She stuck her finger in her mouth. "But the question is, can you keep a secret?"

"I keep all manners of dirty little secrets."

"Well then." She wanted to gut herself for having to say this. "I'm going to have to become one of them."

Sain nodded, stepped back and considered for a moment—whatever it was, Snake didn't want to know— then reached up to his belt, unlatched something from it—and was the third man to proffer her a flask in half an hour. "I do not know what it is you had to drink, but whiskey can cure the smell. Also. Rope from the portcullis. _How?_"

"It is complete." Natalie held up the black tunic and the tan calf-length trousers as Snake and Sain walked into the room. "There was minimal wear on the cloak for which I could do anything. But I did wash out the blood."

"Thank you!" Snake accepted her clothes back eagerly, surprised that Natalie stood taller than her even if the woman had to support herself with the wall. Sain hovered at Snake's side. He already had to catch her twice as she made her way back, and she didn't want to admit it, but he probably saved her from a great deal of pain.

"Florina had told me," said Natalie.

"She came back?"

"She is upstairs now with the others, in the guard room."

"I see..." Snake began to move towards the hall, where she had seen the stairway.

"How many are there?" asked Natalie. "I can help, if you would allow me to..."

Snake stopped. Seeing that Snake had not already cut her off, Natalie continued, half encouraged. "My husband taught me to use the bow."

"Do you have one?"

"I...no...not with me."

"Then giving you a bow would mean taking it away from Lyn."

"Peri," Sain whispered, looking to Natalie to see if she had been offended.

"That is not out of the question," said Snake, walking again. Sain and Natalie shared a glance. "You have already done a great deal without knowing it, Natalie. You will find out soon, but...may I ask of you something more?"

Natalie blinked. "I—of course. I am happy to do help when I can."

Snake turned to Sain and with one hand on his chest plate shoved him back. "Can you make certain this one does not leave the room while I leave now to go get changed?"

* * *

"Everyone, stand up." Snake rose up the stairway into the guard room, pulling on her pine cloak and brushing back the hair at her neckline, hoping these acts would hide the pain of climbing up the stairs. "We do not have much time." She looked at the machinery that controlled the portcullis. Lyn, Lloyd and Kent were gathered around the set of wooden slats raised into the air, connected by ropes and pulleys and holding up the two portcullises suspended below them. There was a grated window that allowed for seeing outside and two metal grates on the floor of the room that allowed soldiers from the guard room to command archers that would occupy the walls in the areas lateral to the space between the two portcullises. These archers would shoot through murder holes, slits in the wall between the two portcullises, killing all enemies they could manage to trap in between if both were thrown down.

This was the first time she had ever encountered such installments, but she had to ward off her curiosity until later. She looked from one member of the Legions to the other. Wil, sitting at the edge of the crate, eyes tracking Snake's every move, observant—_searching?_—to Florina sitting on the same crate against the wall, blinking rapidly, body closed around herself tightly, shallow breaths through her teeth—to Lyn, rocking her balance from heel to toe, arms folded stubbornly over her chest, impatient twitches at her knees and wrists and fingers...

"Miss Peri!" Natalie stood at the bottom of the stairway. "Please do not push them too hard. They are all tired."

Snake cursed inside her head. _Now is not the time to point that out...in front of everybody! Dammit, the whole of our morale can be completely taken out by the single likes of you! I have to do something! If I can't turn this situation around now, then this battle may as well already be over...and I wasn't even allowed to start!_ Snake looked back at them.

"Tired? _Already?_" Sain took a stand as if to refute the whole world. "The day I get tired is the day I get married! If you still live in Pherae at the time, Natalie, I will be sure to send you an invitation."

Snake saw the glimpse of his smile from the corner of her eyes. _Note to self. Find stupid, happy idiots to maintain troop morale. _

Trying to extend the cheer, Snake added offhandedly, "You're going to need some energy for the children."

Kent coughed and looked away and said, "This place is dusty."

"Right you are, Sir Kent," said Lloyd. "Very dusty."

_Note to self, the second. Never put Kent in a position to lie. _Snake carefully crossed her arms and said, "In any case, whatever we need to do to get out of this situation." There was a slight flush in her cheeks, but it couldn't be noted against the red glint of her eyes. She didn't want the whiskey to go away. Without it, the more she talked, the more she would have felt in her ribs and her diaphragm and her arm and her shoulder, and the more it would have hurt to say the next words. Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

"There's more than a dozen, aren't there?" Lyn asked.

"It doesn't matter how many there are," Snake said, trying to shrug indifferently. She began to pace. _Keep them watching me. Keep them listening. _

"We _have_ a stronghold." _It is unstable, especially the western wall. _"We _know_ where they are coming from." _If we fail, there is nowhere we can run. _"We _know_ what we're being attacked by." _Crazed animals that kill for fun._ "And..." She tapped her forehead with her pointer finger. "They have _something_ in there. It just isn't a brain. They are _powerful_, but slow. They have great numbers, but are uncoordinated. They're bullies—they won't challenge us if we had a chance by their standards. They expect to catch us by surprise." She stopped pacing. "But who's going to be surprised?"

"Them. _They _are going to be the ones surprised."

"Lyn," Snake muttered as the Sacaen stepped forward.

_Now_ things were moving. _This_ was how to start!

_Are we united? _Snake wondered. _Can I really pull this off? _With such limited numbers, losses were unforgiving. _They don't know just how many we are dealing with. They would panic. I could not blame them for it. _

"She's right," Wil nodded, hopping off of the crate. "She's absolutely right."

"And before the sun goes down," Snake continued, "_we _will have some surprises in store for _them_...for tonight, ladies and gentlemen..." Snake smiled. "You will talk about tonight for the rest of your life."

* * *

There were preparations to be made. Things to be done. It seemed so easy when she said it, how to get the rope out. Just let the portcullis drop. Sever the rope as close to the gate as possible and just let it go, let it fall forward across the bridge. They couldn't use it, anyway. Did they need the other one? No, this was enough.

Natalie stood aside and watched, the way she always watched, for the first time content. Braced herself at the wall when the weight of twenty-five women shook the ground with concentrated impact, feared for a moment that it would fall the wrong way, the crosses through which she could see the sun flying from square to square—but it didn't, because the horses pulled it the other way—or were going to, until Peri called them to freeze, she had another idea.

The afternoon calls of daytime birds were collecting, it seemed, in Wil's laughter. Lady Lyndis had managed to catch rabbits at some point, and Peri had given Natalie her own dagger with which to skin them. There was a moment of chatter in that hour, questions directed to Natalie about her children—she didn't have any. Then why did she cook like a mother already? She would never be a mother, but she smiled anyway.

There was whispering. Peri handing something off to Lloyd, hidden inside coils of rope. Lloyd watching as she walked off to show Wil where he needed to be. What was that dark expression in his eyes?

She might have been a ghost, maybe, seeing these people maybe only three or fours years younger than her, but so bright like children, and she was content, instilling into her mind the images of their faces—the way Wil's face looked when he burned his tongue on his first bite, Florina behind him trying to figure out how to distribute four spoons amongst seven people—if only she could freeze time so she could show Dorcas, and then he could paint for her and freeze the time forever... Within only a couple of hours she had the distinct memory of Sir Kent running from one side of the fortress to the other with a spoon in his mouth and she could not for her life remember why.

And then the stars were coming into the sky and one by one they all became quiet. It seemed that something they had not expected was coming to close, but the setting sun knew it was only the beginning.

* * *

It was darker than anybody had expected. There was a peeping suspicion, that had rested there the whole time, but as the power of starlight grew so did the voice in the back of his mind. _There's nothing there. It was nothing. There are no bandits. There's nobody there. _

Wil couldn't move an inch of his body at this point without cracking one joint or another. He had been excited, exhilarated. He felt…like he _belonged _with Lyndis's Legions. And he _wanted_ to be part of it. He felt it was something _big_. Something was _happening_. The last time he was this excited was… He left that train of thought and tried to flex his fingers as slowly as possible, imagining he bend them a knuckle at a time. Where were they? He didn't see any of them... He couldn't hear any of them... But then again, when he did, what would he do? These were the longest minutes of his life. Maybe by now he could have plucked every single leaf from the tree he was perched in, tied all their stems together into a gigantic rope, flammable, a whip—what was he thinking—well, at least he was thinking—that meant he wasn't sleeping. But you could sleep with your eyes open, couldn't you? Were you still thinking then too? Was he sleeping?

He flicked a hand at his nose, trying to make the buzz go away. Why wasn't anything happening yet? It was almost time. They were almost here. He would almost be firing at human beings—brutes—not humans? That's what it was. He would almost be firing at almost human beings, and they would almost have realized where the arrows were coming from. But then they'd be almost dead too. And the wall with the cracks, the biggest weakness to the fortress, it would be almost destroyed but not because Wil had almost let them through but he didn't. Being stuck in this world of _almost _was driving him almost insane. He could feel his own breath in his hand. What was that incessant buzzing? It sounded almost like—

He could feel his breath coming faster, shorter. Like staccato on his sister's violin, the only luxury his parents had owned before he had almost become rich on a plan that almost worked. But the difference between almost and the world was reality itself, and Wil had just realized that noise that seemed almost like buzzing was the sound of distant screaming. The battle had already begun and he almost didn't know it!

Lloyd. Lloyd was sent far to the east, far from everyone else, a lone wolf. Whereas that was where the screams were arising, it was still all quiet on the western front, so Wil gritted his teeth...and waited.

There were three of them. They were laughing and joking. The enemy was holed up in a crumbling building, they were told. The enemy would be attacked from three directions, they were told. These three would break down a weak section of the wall and then would come from behind.

* * *

"Love surprises!" the archer of the threesome said. "Too bad Riley's gang is too far west to realize the suckers stopped here!"

The three men had laughed again, then stopped at the wall, unwary of being carefully scrutinized.

"This is it," the archer said. "This here, see it's marked? Under this bit here… I remember from the formation of the mold, looks like an arrow, dunnit?"

"Pretty clever, pretty clever," the other two agreed.

The one who watched them gave a sort of irritated grunt and notched an arrow. He'd have to run fast, he realized.

Now the arrow was pointed at the enemy archer on the ground, the only one capable of long-range attacks. Before releasing the arrow, Wil weighed the capability of the other two. The man with the axe now commanded the other two to move away. Then, with great, hefty swings, he began to split the wall with lightning-shaped cracks, each spreading just as quick, Wil thought.

_With that racket, I think I can climb down safely, _Wil thought. He put away the arrow, praying the bandits didn't hear him. How long until the wall shattered?

He stashed the bow away now, reached down a hand to the lower branch, and lowered himself to it. Now he slid a foot to the trunk of the tree—_Crr-ACK!_—he froze, heart thumping so hard inside he thought it would jump up his throat and out of his mouth and land at the bandits' feet in surrender. His eyes were pressed to the left so hard to see the bandits' reactions, he thought they would eventually roll on until he saw only the inside of his head. To further his panic, his hair had formed a solid mat against his sight. He didn't dare shake his hair out of his eyes—but what if they were coming and he couldn't see?

What if they _didn't_ see?

For a moment, Wil was deciding if it was better to alert them if they hadn't seen him or if it was better to know if they were coming or not. He gritted his teeth. _I'd rather know my end is coming! _He dropped from the tree, bit back a cry as he landed in the shrubbery underneath headfirst, and then peeked through one eye. There were tiny points of light through the messy tangles of the leaves—or was he seeing things?

No, the prickly barb-like branches of the bush said as they poked his bum painfully. There was some uncomfortable liquid running down the back of one leg, what he rather hoped to be blood from a puncture on his hind-quarters and...not other places.

Not daring to breathe, he twisted his head this way and that until he found a big enough hole of an opening to see.

The three bandits were still hacking at the wall, their back to Wil.

_I really couldn't do better than this, could I? _Wil thought with a smile as he now slowly, carefully, reached to his shoulder for an arrow—and found nothing.

_Please, Goddess, no…_

But yes.

He looked up through the awkward closing hole made by bent branches moving to restore themselves to their rightful places. Some of the branches had snapped off entirely.

The satchel of arrows was caught in one of the bent branches.

_It's not __**terrible**__ luck,_ Wil thought with a sigh of relief as he reached up and pulled down the satchel. But it was stuck fast to the thorny branches of the shrub. _I take that back._

After a lot of twisting, tugging, pulling, maneuvering the satchel this way and that—and carving more and more stinging red lines on the back of his hand the longer he wrestled with the prickly branches of the bush—Wil finally got back the satchel. He looked back to the three bandits, one arrow in hand and the other hand with bow.

The wall had an impressive dent in it now. They were half finished, Wil guessed.

Horrified by how long Wil had taken for the satchel and doing nothing, he hastily notched the arrow—or attempted to. His right hand pulled the bowstring—and scraped into the branches behind him, unable to stretch the string far enough to shoot the arrow forward across the distance between himself and the bandits. Desperate, Wil scooted forward to the wall of branches in front of him, leaned down uncomfortably so he could see through the hole, stretched his right hand back further and forced the bow forward as well. The bow wouldn't move forward. Wil looked back up to the hole he'd created and was dismayed to find the end of the bow sticking far over the top of the shrub.

_This isn't going to work! _Wil bit his lip, now angry. The axe-man not ten yards in front of him was hacking away merrily. _Only one thing to do now!_

Wil tensed, curled his arms over his head protectively. Launched himself out of the back of the shrub. Stood up. Took aim.

* * *

"Hey, Dorcas, if you don't want an axe up your ass then get over here!"

Carjiga switched the axe from one hand to the other as his second-in-command brought Dorcas to him, the others with him silent as they watched their newest addition approach the boss.

"Where are the others?" asked Carjiga quietly. He was more of a 'Speak softly, and carry big axe' sort of guy. "You didn't think you could run away and not get caught, did you?"

"Dead."

"What?"

"We were coming in from the east as you ordered. Then there was a fire ghost. Then everybody killed each other."

The others waited for a queue from Carjiga to start laughing. Carjiga only rubbed his chin. "Now listen, Norde brought you because he said you were a facts kind of guy," said the man, emphasizing _facts_ as if he was proud to use the word. "I like facts guys. I like them 'cause they don't go wasting your time. Now what kind of facts are these? Think about it. There were _twenty _of you, _twenty_, and you're saying you're the only one alive because everybody else saw a ghost and killed themselves."

"I saw her too."

"Oh, you saw the ghost too, did you?" Now there was laughter. "And what did it say?"

"She didn't say anything."

"Oh yeah? Wait, the ghost was a girl?"

"She was laughing."

"Right."

"From everywhere at once."

"Of course."

"With many voices."

"Yes."

"She was on fire."

"Uh huh."

"And now she is flying at the fortress."

"Right."

"So then Granger wanted to go to the fortress. Hamsley said there was no way he was going. Granger killed Hamsley. Dayton killed Granger. George—"

"So how come _you're_ still talking?"

"What?"

"Why are you still alive?"

"Because I ran away."

"Ah hah! There we have it."

"From everybody killing each other."

"Okay, okay, you know what? Sorry I asked. Weasel, go take a look and see if you can find this fire ghost."

"She's at the fortress right now. Look."

Carjiga walked out from under the trees to the open fields where the fortress loomed up on an incline and, sure enough, there was fire in the sky, going around once, twice, thrice before Carjiga remembered how to use his mouth again.

"Jackson and Hayden ran off into the east," Dorcas provided, scratching the back of his neck. "I couldn't find those four that are always together—"

"You mean Yllda's crew?"

"Yes."

"Hah! Guess they're just going to miss out on their lot of the money, eh boys?"

"Yeah!" came the collection of cries behind Carjiga and Dorcas. A very small collection.

Carjiga turned back to them. "What's _wrong_ with you? Can't you recognize a dress on fire?"

Silence.


End file.
